Improving Your CarImproving Your Car

Though you may not realize it, your car contains a vast and complex electrical system. Fortunately, you don't have to be an expert to address the most common problem related to this system--a dead fuse. If you would like to brush up your automotive troubleshooting skills, read on. This article will introduce three helpful tips for replacing a dead fuse.

Locate the appropriate fuse using a fuse map.

It shouldn't be too hard to find your automobile's fuse box. Simply pop the hood and look around for a rectangular black box. Oftentimes, the cover will even bear an appropriate label. Things get a little more difficult once you've opened that fuse box up, however. The vast colorful array of fuses inside is enough to cause less experienced home mechanics to break out in a sweat.

The good news is that it is actually a good deal easier than you might think to find the fuse you want. All you'll need to do is consult your car's fuse map. If you're lucky, there will be a version of this map glued to the inside of your fuse box's lid. If not, grab your owner's manual, which will certainly contain a copy of the same map. This will allow you to easily locate the fuse that controls the non-functioning component of your car.

Use a test light to determine if a particular fuse is bad.

A blown fuse may not be the only reason that your radio has stopped working, or your dash lights aren't coming on, just to name two potential problems. It can be frustrating to find this out after going through the trouble of heading out to purchase a replacement fuse. Luckily, you can save yourself time and energy by using an automotive test light to verify whether a bad fuse is the cause of your problem.

You don't even have to take the fuse out to perform this operation. After attaching the test light's ground cable to a metal part of your car's frame, simply touch the tip of the test probe to the particular fuse's test ports--there should be two of them. If the light fails to activate when each port is touched, the fuse is bad. If both ports trigger the light to come on, something else is the cause of your problem.

Fuses of the same color are interchangeable.

Finding an appropriate replacement fuse can be a daunting task--that is, until you realize that all fuses conform to a system of color coding. In other words, all fuses of a particular color have the same amp rating. That means all you have to do to replace a bad fuse is to purchase one of the same color. 

For assistance, talk to a car repair mechanic.