Car is an 89 245DL with 180,000 miles

Earlier today the SERVICE reminder light came on. The manual states that it will come on upon start up and go away after 2 minutes until reset by a tech. I did some errands that day and the light did come on and went off after 2 minutes. But later this evening, the light came on (along with all the idiot lights) upon start up, but it went out after the car fired up instead of staying on for 2 minutes. Can the SERVICE light reset itself? I plan to get an oil change sooon. Should I tell the tech to reset it anyway even though it does not stay on after start up?

It's odd that the light would reset itself. It takes a physical displacement of the reset lever on the back of the speedo to reset it. (on 90 and new it was move on the front side of the panel). Bare in mind this a set rotating gear that trips a lever at a specified mile accumulation. If you reset the lever before the gear has completely rotated, it will just reset to the beginning and it starts counting from zero miles. No biggy.

No blood, no foul.

If it acts up later, you can take it back to the tech for a reset.

But if it's like my 1992, the reset is a recessed button on the lower right face of the instrument cluster.

On some years (I hope not yours) the button is in a stupid location on the back of the cluster. I think Haynes has instructions and a pic on resetting this.

Good luck.

Doug Harvey