The Illuminated Cog Wheel With an Exclamation Mark

So, there I am, in my car, the one I spent an arm and a leg on last week having its brakes and tyres replaced, thinking how that money was well spent as the ride quality is so improved and braking so much smoother, when I look down at the instruments and see a bloody warning light has come on.  It's not one of the usual ones which I recognise and can make a reasonable guess at what is causing them.  No, this is like a red cog wheel with an exclamation mark in it - that can't be good, can it?  As I didn't have the owner's manual with me and the car was still running without misfiring and all the gears were engaged, I decided that diagnostics would have to wait until I got home from my shopping trip.  During the two legs of the journey the only thing amiss I noticed was a lack of acceleration, particularly uphill, as if the turbocharger wasn't engaging.  Which wasn't very promising as I know from experience that turbocharger troubles can be very expensive to rectify.  Back at home, the owner's manual was typically vague on the warning light - the cog with the exclamation mark is apparently the power train warning light, but the term 'power train' seems to encompass everything from gearbox and clutch to differentials and wheel bearings.

Anyway, after some searching on the web, to try and find other people who have had the problem, I found that one of the commonest causes for this particular warning light to come on was a problem with the glow plugs, a component I wouldn't classify as being part of the 'power train', but which, for some reason show as this kind of fault rather than igniting the expected 'check engine' light, (they are an engine component, after all).  Luckily, this is relatively easy to remedy - by replacing the glow plugs - and isn't too expensive.  Which means, inevitably, that it won't be the case with my car.  Things are never that simple for me.  The long and the short of all this is that I'll have to waste another chunk of my Easter time off traipsing down to the garage tomorrow to try and arrange to book the bloody thing in for a diagnostic test and remedial action.  This will inevitably mean wasting another day off dropping the thing off, sitting by the bloody phone all day, before (hopefully) collecting it and paying an exorbitant bill.  The trouble is that I have no choice other than to get it sorted out this week, as I'm back at work next week and a car in full working order is essential to my job. I'm left exasperated and wondering why, just once, I can't own a car that just works and doesn't keep wasting my precious time off with bloody warning lights.