Brits warned about one light on car dashboard that means you should 'stop driving immediately'
This isn't one you can ignore
A man has said that you need to know the real reason why a certain light is coming up on your car dashboard, and reckons you should stop driving right away if it's happening.
Scotty Kilmer is a YouTuber who seems to know quite a bit about cars and has all sorts of advice for his viewers on how to sort things.
He's a man who reckons you should look to sell your car once it starts clunking as you change gear, though that'll be a palaver for the buyer.
There are also some ideas he has for what to do in order to preserve your car's transmission and avoid it getting into a state that needs fixing.
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However, this time he's got something else on his mind.
While he comes across as a somewhat shouty man, it seems as though he does have something important to shout about.
There may be lots of lights on your dashboard but the one he was really interested in this time was your battery light.
He warned that this was actually 'false advertising' as cars used to have an 'ALT' warning for the vehicle's alternator, the thing that charges the car's battery.
When the charging voltage gets too low, that makes the battery light come on to warn the driver that their battery isn't getting enough charge to keep it running.
Scotty said that just because the battery light comes on it might not mean the problem is with the battery itself and another component could be the cause of the issue.
Nevertheless, if the light comes on while you're driving then he reckons you need to stop immediately and figure out what the problem is before you go any further.
On the other hand, if the light comes on while your car is idling but switches off once you drive then the battery is 'getting weak but you can still drive it a while before you have to replace it'.
"So don't run out and buy a brand new battery just because the battery light is going on, it's probably not a bad battery, it's a bad alternator," he declared to motorists in need of his advice.
This is by no means the only piece of car-related advice he's given over the years.
Another dashboard light he's talked about is the 'check engine' warning, saying that if it keeps going off and on then it's likely a minor issue that you don't have to worry about immediately.
He said he'd 'seen people spend thousands of dollars trying to track down a problem in their car' when they had plenty of time to wait for it to get worse, while sometimes they'd even spend big money to replace parts that didn't need fixing.
That's not the official advice around the light, however, as the RAC says you ought to get your engine checked as soon as possible if the light comes on.
Joe Harker