Leisa

Ok, I'm updating this, primarily for Dj Syco's benefit. Just for fun, yesterday we replaced every single bulb connected to this circuit, 8 total (both sidelights, both parking lights, both rear lights and both the license plate lights). This made no difference as suspected. Fiddling around this morning with the push button fuse (at this point just for fiddlings sake), I noticed I could get dash lights back by setting the switch on top of the steering column to parking lights. This did not give parking/side/rear lights though. I mentioned it to my husband, and he babbled something about how weird the car was, and that he wanted to check the position of the switch vs the fuse for the door locks. With the switch set to parking lights, he inserted a 20amp fuse in the empty fuse slot for the door locks. It was a pretty pink and blue explosion instantly. Pulled the freshly toasted fuse out, switched the parking light switch to normal position (park lights off), and inserted a new fuse into the door lock slot. The idea he said, was to eliminate the door lock issue from the equation. This time, the fuse did not blow, and so I pressed the door lock and sure enough all the doors would lock and unlock. He laughed and told me to switch on the ignition and turn the lights on (not the parking light switch, the twist switch on the stalk). After mumbling things I can't type here, he told me that in addition to the obviously working dash lights, that every single light that should be lit was now lit. He had me start the car, and sure enough everything stayed on. We've tried turning them on and off multiple times, and they work just fine. NEVER GOING TO PRESS THAT PARKING LIGHT SWITCH AGAIN. We're guessing it accidentally got pressed, and whatever weird wiring issue the car has, that's what got the lights and locks all messed up, and until you have the switch in the right place and working fuses in all the slots, it'll stay messed up.

Thankyou for your reply. I got the year wrong, it's a '93 model. I already disconnected all the light sockets hoping that was where I'd find my short, and doing so makes no difference (front and back). The parking lights, dash lights and rear lights are all through the same fuse, and I assume therefore the same relay, but as mentioned, replacing each of the 4 relays above the fuse box in turn with a brand new one yielded no joy. There's no harness for a trailer,all wiring around the bulb sockets looks good, as do the connectors and the visible wire beyond. The wires at the fuse block all look fine, the only wires I couldn't get a good look at were the ones to the 4 relays above the fusebox, as they are in a very difficult to reach/see position. I would like to know the location of all the relays involved with all the lighting though, so that I can maybe check them. Today we took the multimeter to each of the bulb sockets, having installed a circuit breaker fuse with a reset switch in (the floor of the car is awash with little blue fuses, and I'm sick of replacing them). In the few seconds before it trips, each of the rear lights gave 4v (not enough for them to light up) and the front right sidelight gave 2. Couldn't get a reading off of the front left one, so went back to the rear left and noticed nothing there now either. Checked the fuse, and the reset switch had gone in a little too far, and a quick tap put it back in place. Switch the lights back on, and now everything is working. Dash lights are back, parking lights and rear lights all on. We sat and scratched our heads and looked at them for a good 5 minutes, before turning the key to start the engine. Doing so, they disappeared, and the little switch on the fuse popped out just like before. After that, it was back to business as usual with no dash, sides/park and rear lights, and fuse popping after a few seconds each try. We did get the reading off of the front left side light since it was behaving again as before, and as per the other sidelight it gave a reading of 2v. We did try disconnecting bulb holders again, to no avail, and other than having switched the lights on and off a million times (thank god for that circuit breaker fuse) nothing was done for the miraculous sudden appearance of all the lights working properly. One final thing, possibly unrelated, very shortly after this problem occurred, the central door locks quit. This too was a fuse, and replacing it worked briefly but now just blows each fuse shortly after installing (without having to even fire the locks).

Hi guys, I'm hoping someone can give me some pointers. We have a '94 Loyale Wagon, and one night the dash lights went off. I later discovered that we have no rear lights or front parking lights either, and discovered that fuse 6 (I think) handles parking lights and dash. The fuse was indeed blown, and replacing it blew immediately I turned the light switch on. Wondering if it was the dimmer switch, took the dash apart and disconnected the dimmer switch hoping that maybe this would allow the tail lights to spring to life. Although the fuse now didn't blow on switching on the lights, there were still no tail lights (or front sidelights). Putting the dash rheostat back in gave the dash lights back without the fuse blowing, but still no rear or front sides/park lights. I disconnected the connectors to the front side/parking lights, wondering if maybe there was a short there, but no change. Did the same with the rear lights (brake lights work just fine, as do main and full beam headlights btw) and also the license plate lights. No change. Pressing the switch on top of the steering column for parking lights instantly blew the fuse again. Trawling through these boards, we tried replacing the relay (unsure which of the 4 above the fuse box it was, we had to pull one at a time and test) but still were unable to bring life to the rear lights. Taking the steering column housing off to have a look at the parking light switch, showed that unfortunately it's not a separate entity to try and bypass, but built in to one big hub around the steering. Bizarrely, when I tested the lights again, the rear and front sides lit up, but after turning on and off a few times, quit again, and now the dash lights once again are out. This pretty well leaves me thinking it's something in the switch mechanism, but that's an expensive part. Is there something else I'm missing or can check? Is there a way I can bypass just the parking light switch (since until trying to get the rear lights on, had never used it, and never will). If the dash lights never reappeared at any point, and the fuse stopped blowing when they did, I would think it was a short somewhere and maybe it is, help on where I should look (it's certainly not near the fuse box) would be greatly appreciated. Am I barking up all the wrong trees? I know nothing about car electrics, and it's driving me crazy. The car has a big rust problem around the wheel arches, it won't be passing it's next inspection, therefore I really don't want to fool with replacing that big switch around the steering column (especially since it looks like soldering etc. is involved). Thanks in advance for any suggestions. (did try replacing bulbs also as per other things I've seen in this forum).