Car Fault Finder is a free, independent troubleshooting library for ordinary drivers. When something goes wrong with a car, most people are handed two bad options: a forum thread from 2011 with six contradictory answers, or a workshop quote they have no way of judging. This site exists to give you a third option — a clear, honest explanation of what your car is doing and why.
What We Cover
Everything a car can do to tell you something is wrong:
- OBD-II trouble codes — what each code actually means, and why the code is a clue rather than a diagnosis.
- Dashboard warning lights — what triggers them, how urgent each one is, and whether it is safe to keep driving.
- Symptoms — the noises, smells, leaks, vibrations and behaviour changes you notice before any light comes on.
- Systems — engine, transmission, brakes, electrics, cooling, steering, suspension and air conditioning.
- Maintenance — the routine work that prevents most of the faults above.
How We Write These Guides
Every guide is built around the same principles, because they are the things that were missing from the pages we found frustrating:
- Answer the question in the first paragraph. If you searched for what a code means, you should not have to scroll past a history of automotive diagnostics to find out.
- Order causes by how often they are actually responsible — not by what is most dramatic or most profitable to replace.
- Say when something is serious, and say when it is not. A guide that treats every fault as an emergency is as useless as one that treats nothing as urgent.
- Be explicit about the limits. Where a fault genuinely needs a scan tool, a pressure test or a lift, we say so rather than pretending it can be solved in a driveway.
What We Are Not
Car Fault Finder is not a garage, a repair service, a parts retailer or a diagnostic service. We do not inspect vehicles, we cannot see your car, and we have no commercial relationship with any manufacturer or parts supplier that influences what these guides say.
Because we cannot examine your vehicle, everything here is general information. Two cars showing the identical code can need completely different repairs. Please read our disclaimer before acting on anything you find here, and treat a qualified mechanic’s hands-on diagnosis as authoritative over any web page — including this one.
Corrections
If you find something on this site that is wrong, out of date or misleading, we would genuinely like to know. Accuracy matters more to us than being right the first time. Use the contact page and tell us which guide and what is wrong with it.