An amber warning light appeared on my car’s dashboard the other day, which is something that’s been happening with increasing regularity.

This time the amber light indicated that I was out of gas, which surprised me, because I was pulling out of the gas station at the time after a $52 fill-up. So either the amber light was wrong or I get even worse mileage than I thought.

Whatever the problem was, my wife immediately says what she always says when an amber light comes on:

“Maybe it’s time for you to buy a new car.”

She’s probably right. The car is 8 years old and my mechanic’s on speed dial. When I call him and begin, “Hi, Jerry, this is D.L. ...” he automatically replies, “Bring it in.” What I’m saving by no longer having monthly car payments is approximately the same as what I’m paying for monthly repairs.

But I gave my wife a bunch of reasons why this is not a good time for me to buy a new car. The economy’s weak. I’m really busy at work. It’s baseball season.

The real reason I don’t want to get involved in buying a new car, though, is: because I’m really lousy at it.

In my defense, I’m not as lousy as I used to be — when I bought my current car I managed to pay only $1,000 over sticker price. But lousy, nevertheless.

I’ve tried to educate myself about the car-buying process. I read Consumer Digest’s reports. I surf online sources that show how to buy a new car that’s built like a Sherman tank, goes zero to 60 in half a second and lasts four months on a tank of gas.

But when I walk into a new car showroom, all that goes out the rear window and I wind up buying a car because it looks really cool.

Sometimes the whole car doesn’t even have to look really cool.

I bought my current car, for instance, because it has a really cool hood ornament. But even that’s not an option for me anymore. New cars no longer are allowed to have hood ornaments because they’re now considered to be a safety hazard. (A car dealer explained to me that they could cause injury if you hit a pedestrian. My guess is that a pedestrian struck by a car is going to be pretty much banged up by the bumper or fenders and probably isn’t going to notice whatever injury the hood ornament might cause).

So buying a new car is going to be even a bigger challenge this time.

Maybe I should just look for one that doesn’t have amber lights.

Contact this columnist at dlstew_2000@yahoo.com.