the "maintenance" light lets you know when to check certain things at certain milage... in the owners manual it tells you the milage to check different parts on your car... it goes from green to yellow to red... after to you check those things, or you just get sick of seeing red or yellow, stick your key and a flat head screwdriver in the little black hole on the guage cluster and that will turn it back to green... i am pretty sure that it turns colors after every 7500 miles...