Alright, so get this... Tonight I was parked out front of the police station waiting for a police officer to sign off on a fix-it ticket I received a few months back for my right-rear tail light being "too dim". After recently throwing in some 6-volt LED tail lights and cleaning up the grounds, everything was working perfectly. As I am waiting for the officer to show I flashed my dimmer switch a few times to check the quality of my headlights, no big deal. 5 minutes later, I shit you not, I've got nothing. Headlights and tail lights are both out (which are all new), but my brake lights still work which would indicate to me that my bulbs are still good. Needless to say, my fix-it ticket has not been signed off. Checked fuses and everything looks ok. After acknowledging my terrible luck, my next suspicion would be that either the dimmer switch or the head light switch has fried. Before I go throwing unnecessary amounts of money at this issue, I figured I would ask if anyone has had similar problems in the past. Any suggestions?
If it was just the dimmer switch that went south, you still should have taillights, so it's very likely the headlight switch is bad. That doesn't rule out a bad dimmer switch though; if the switch was marginal, a bad dimmer could have finished it off. I'd pull the dimmer switch out and make sure it isn't shorted to ground and has zero resistance between terminals when switching. Also make sure you have incoming power to the headlight switch. Is it all still OEM wiring, or has the wiring and/or switches been replaced/repaired? IIRC, the OEM headlight switch uses an internal circuit breaker for overcurrent protection to the headlights and has two glass fuses on it, one for the taillights and one for the instrument lights. If you have power to the switch but none going out (check for power at the fuse clips), the switch is bad. If you have power at the fuse clips but no tail/dash lights, the fuse is bad, but you should still have power at the headlight output terminal. No power there, again, the switch is bad.
The wiring looks like it was replaced, and as for the headlight switch, I'm not 100% sure if its OEM or not. From what I was able to see last night, there weren't any fuses on the head light switch. I will be removing everything soon to test and will get back to you with the results. Thanks for the info, Crazy Steve.
If you have 'generic' aftermarket parts and wiring, you'll just have to trace stuff. But it still sounds like you've lost either the headlight switch or incoming power to it...
The headlight switch is not OEM and all of connections look clean and new. But this bit of info may or may not help with this crazy diagnosis. Early Friday morning when I picked the car up from the police lot, guess what was working. All of it. I drove it home and was eventually able to get the ticket signed off. Could the switch get hot and temporarily short out? Either way, I need to eventually trace all of the wires and test the switches. And as for the LED tail lights, I was reluctant to use them in the first place. The SuperBright incandescent bulbs I was using beforehand were not bright enough to pass the officers inspection and I wasn't getting brake lights. With the dual intensity of the LED I now have brighter tail lights and brake lights. I'm not ruling out the LEDs as a cause for what happened and would like to go back to the incandescents if I can in the future.
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