If your driving a car that was built after the early nineties, you'll almost certainly be driving a vehicle that can tell you when it's feeling unwell!
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It does so by popping up a light on the dashboard and it maybe yellow, orange or red and the colour can in most cases suggest how bad it really feels. Plus, with some vehicles it may also switch the engine into what is called 'Limp Mode' which will slow the vehicle down preventing you from doing more damage than necessary, but allowing you to get the vehicle back home or to your nearest garage. All clever stuff, but nowhere on the dashboard does it actually tell you what the problem is.
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So, it could be just a glitch, as this does happen, or it could be something pending a catastrophic event where it's about to eject your engine out of the vehicle.
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If you have the right tools, such as a diagnostic code reader, you can plug the reader into the OnBoard Diagnostics (OBD) socket and read out the corresponding trouble codes. Such readers can be found on the likes of eBay for a few pounds and over the years many DIY mechanics will have purchased one. However, once having read the code it is then down to you to make the diagnosis and corresponding decision on how the vehicle should be fixed.
If you want to take a look at some of these codes, check out this OBD site
As you may see obtaining the code and finding what the code relates to is relatively straight forward, but understanding how to effect the repair can be a very different matter.
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For us it's just a another day at the office, so if you have a light on and you don't really want to get involved in trying to work out which part has to be thrown and replaced, get in touch and we'll get it sorted for you.