Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff works dot com where smart happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain with today's question, what do the break warning lights mean in my car? Most cars have one or two break warning lights on the dashboard. When you first start the car, all the lights on the dashboard should light up. This is the bulb check. They should go out in a few seconds. If a light doesn't go out, then your car is
trying to tell you that there's a problem. If a light does not light during the bulb check, it tells you that you need to replace the bulb. Your car illuminates the brake light to indicate one of two things. Either your emergency brake is on and you release it to solve the problem, or that you have lost break pressure in half of the brake system. The brake system is divided into two parts, each part trolling two wheels. The goal is to lower the risk of a complete
brake failure. If one half of the brake system loses pressure, the light comes on. Releasing your emergency brake is easy enough, but what should you do If you've lost break pressure? You should slowly and calmly pull over and stop. If the brake system is completely failed, you'll have to use the emergency brake for breaking. If the light stays on, it means that the pressure on that one side of the brake system is lower than on the other. There
are a couple of reasons why this could happen. There could be a leak in one part of the system making it impossible for one part of the system to hold any pressure, or the hydraulic fluid could be low, probably because of a leak. In either case, you should have the car repaired before you try driving it again. Cars with anti lock brakes have an amber or yellow warning light which usually says ABS. If this light stays illuminated after the bulb check, it means that there's a
problem with the anti lock braking system. The A B S controller, which is a computer, will disable the system and your brake should function as if you don't have A B S. In other words, they'll work fine, but you won't have the anti skid properties. In this case, you can safely drive the cargo. A mechanic for service for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is It How Stuff Works dot Com