Richard Hammond has teamed up with automotive diagnostics firm Carly, but this is less about star power than a familiar ownership problem — modern cars are getting harder to diagnose.
Hammond, best known from “Top Gear” and “The Grand Tour”, will front educational content for Carly aimed at helping UK drivers understand what is going on when warning lights appear.
The idea is to make diagnostic information less mysterious, especially as newer cars depend increasingly on software, sensors, battery voltage stability and communication networks between control units.
Many faults are no longer easy to pin down by feel, sound or old-school mechanical checks.
A dashboard warning could involve anything from a weak 12V battery to a sensor fault, Controller Area Network Bus (CAN-BUS) communication error, emissions system issue or software-related glitch.
Carly said its data from diagnostic sessions points to software, sensor, voltage and vehicle communication issues among the common faults detected in cars from 2016 to 2024. This is Carly’s own dataset, and it should be treated as a useful snapshot rather than an independent reliability study.
Owners need to know that modern cars can be harder to understand, and early diagnostics can help drivers ask better questions before approving repairs. That applies just as much to hybrids and electric vehicles as it does to petrol and diesel cars.
