Alpin 328is
04-02-2011, 05:49 PM
I've owned my car about 3 months. The left turn signal and right brake light never worked, and I decided to tackle them. I have checked the trunk lid harness and the wiring to the tail light plugs and all looked good. My trunk lock and tag lights all worked fine.
I bought new lamp assemblies because I wanted clear turn signals to match my clear corners. The casting of the plastic on the socket holes was crap. It took some cleanup and tweaking of the metal runners to get he sockets so that they would twist in. I wasn't happy with having to do this, but, ya gotta do what ya gotta do
My left turn signal still didn't work and the running light on the right didn't look quite right. I went to reinstall the right running light socket, and all the bulbs went out, as did my dash lights and interior lights. :mad
I found the correct bulb types and a diagram of the plugs, got new bulbs, fuses and a multimeter and went to town. I had power to all the pins in the plugs and had a WTF moment.
Here's the kicker. The metal connectors in 2 of my sockets were bent all to hell. The one at the bottom wasn't coming into conact with the bottom of the bulb on one. There's a contact that runs up the side of the socket and has a 30 or so degree bend at the top. On the other 1, this was bent down at the bottom of the socket. My guess is that it was sticking out to far towards the center of the socket, caught on the bottom of the bulb, and someone just jammed it in. After I straightened it up and put the kink back in the top end of it, I plugged it in and it lit right up.
No more OBC messages about tail light or stop light failure!!! All lights now work as they should.
Bottom line, check everything. I would never have suspected the stupid sockets, but that was the problem. I hope this helps someone else.
I bought new lamp assemblies because I wanted clear turn signals to match my clear corners. The casting of the plastic on the socket holes was crap. It took some cleanup and tweaking of the metal runners to get he sockets so that they would twist in. I wasn't happy with having to do this, but, ya gotta do what ya gotta do
My left turn signal still didn't work and the running light on the right didn't look quite right. I went to reinstall the right running light socket, and all the bulbs went out, as did my dash lights and interior lights. :mad
I found the correct bulb types and a diagram of the plugs, got new bulbs, fuses and a multimeter and went to town. I had power to all the pins in the plugs and had a WTF moment.
Here's the kicker. The metal connectors in 2 of my sockets were bent all to hell. The one at the bottom wasn't coming into conact with the bottom of the bulb on one. There's a contact that runs up the side of the socket and has a 30 or so degree bend at the top. On the other 1, this was bent down at the bottom of the socket. My guess is that it was sticking out to far towards the center of the socket, caught on the bottom of the bulb, and someone just jammed it in. After I straightened it up and put the kink back in the top end of it, I plugged it in and it lit right up.
No more OBC messages about tail light or stop light failure!!! All lights now work as they should.
Bottom line, check everything. I would never have suspected the stupid sockets, but that was the problem. I hope this helps someone else.