Hello all, it seems as if my cigarette lighter isn't charging anything. I have a 1982 GL, and both my GPS and my cell phone don't seem to be getting any charge when I plug them into the cig lighter. Is it broken or do old cars just not work with chargers? I checked the fuse and it's fine, so should I just replace the cig lighter? Thanks!

Does it light a cigarette lighter? Sometimes you gotta twist around and play with accessory connectors to get them to make contact right.

It used to heat up the cigarette lighter a little bit, but I remember it being difficult to get it to work. Now it doesn't work at all. And I've fiddled with the accessory connectors quite a bit, I don't think that's the problem. I was going to just take it out and get a new one, but I can't figure out how to get to the cig lighter without pulling the whole dash. I got the bottom section with the stereo out, but the cig lighter is on the upper section, and I can't find any screws or anything to remove it.

If you make a tester out of an ordinary spare 12v car light (tail-light, dome light, turn signal light, whatever,) or if you have a voltmeter of some sort, just pull out the cigarette lighter, unplug it, stick your tester leads into the connector, and see if it lights up.

 

The cigarette lighter itself is probably all corroded inside and there's just not enough undamaged metal to make any good electrical contacts. Should just get a new socket. Those things get pretty abused over the years..

More than likely a ground issue...at least mine was. Make sure its got a good ground.

Sweet, thanks guys. It looks pretty corroded so I'm just gonna pull it and check the ground while I'm back there. I'll let you know once I figure it out!