The Automobile Idiot Light

My stepdad used to call them idiot lights...those lights on the dashboard of the car which you are supposed to rely on to tell you when your car has a problem. The real problem is, you never know what the real problem is.

For example, I have light on in my dashboard of what is supposed to be a flat tire icon and its significance is to tell me that my tire pressure is low. Fantastic. That works, right? Sometimes my tire pressure *is* low. Wrong. You see...this light has been on since the beginning of last winter. And when I asked the dealership, they said, "this can happen when it's cold". I don't know if I've told you this or not, but I live in New England...where it's cold at least half the year. So I ignored it. And that light stayed on through the summer until I determined that my tire pressure was low. I know what you're thinking and I *did* check it originally when the dealership told me it was fine and it truly was a result of cold temperature then. But recently, it is a result of a slow tire leak. I don't know anything about cars...and in this case, the idiot light didn't work so well. But it did. But not really.

So last night (it was 1am and I was going to get Nathan some much needed cold relief), I get into Katharine's Jeep and low and behold, the CHECK ENGINE light is on. Here is a light without a point.

Sure I can open the hood and look at the engine to see if it's covered in seaweed or to make sure there isn't some severed head out of a slasher movie in there. In both cases, I've checked the engine. This light tells you nothing other than there's *something* wrong with your car, but it's not going to tell you what. It doesn't blink. There's no code next to it. But now you must CHECK YOUR ENGINE to clear it. And that light can only be extinguished at a dealer in most cases, so you're dropping at least $100. And it *could* be simply a computer malfunction in the car that randomly just turned that light on. But we won't know until we take it in. So that's what we'll do.

Do you have lights in your car that randomly turn on when you least expect it?