How to Change an Indicator or Warning Light in Your Automobile

If you have an emergency light in your dash board that does not turn on when the key is on, but your engine is not running, chances are that your bulb has burned out. Changing a warning light bulb is a lot more difficult then the other bulbs in your car, but here are some tips to help you out. .

If you have an old or classic car, there is a chance that you can access the panel that holds your warning lights by just lifting up the hood. If you do not see it or have a newer vehicle, you will probably need to go to look in a repair manual that is designed for your specific vehicle.

Now that you have located the panel that has your warning lights on it, you should see a bunch of wires coming out of the back of the panel. Look at the one that is out from inside your vehicle and count the number of warning lights that are to the left of it. Once you have done that go back into the compartment and count the wires like you did with the lights to find the one that is a problem. Now that you have found the one that is bad, gently pull it out. Be careful, because the bulb is probably attached to the wire, and if the wire has corroded into place at all the bulb could fall out into a spot you can not reach. This happened to me once, and it got lodged where my turn signal indicator was so that every time I tried to turn the shadow of the bulb made my car look like it was having an idea.

If the bulb fell out there are a couple of things you can do. The first thing is take a wire coat hanger, or other type of thin sticklike thing. And put something sticky on the end such as blue tack putty or in a pinch bubble gum. Now stick the sticky side through the hole and try your best to fish out the problem bulb. If you are lucky it will come out without to much hassle. Do not press to hard against anything, because you could break the plastic that covers the light and provides the red or green color.

If that does not work you can also disassemble the whole backing and take it out that way. However if you do not have time, or if the bulb is in a place where you can t see it you can choose to leave it in there.

Now move the moving parts of the one that lost the bulb back and forth until they loosen up. Oil might also help keep the situation from happening again, but oil can also mess up the connection, which will cause a failure and make it not work anyway. Now replace the bulb and put everything back into its original place.