the air intake hose is ripped. could this make the engine light to come on

yep. i would get a bid from a parts store for the part. Roy

You have probably figured this out but most likely your exhaust flex pipe has a hole in it. The part is pretty cheap on ebay and I got a muffler guy to weld it on for 50 bucks. You will also need to replace your upstream O2 sensor at the same time. And you will need a special socket to take it off that you can get from the auto parts store. It was about 69 dollars for both the sensor and the socket. I also recommend that you get a Haynes manual for repair work, they just came out for the HHR in January 2013. There is also a great forum site for HHR owners, its: http://www.chevyhhr.net/ Hope any of this helps, been through the same thing.