DRL / Tail Light malfunction


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Old 05-27-08, 09:14 AM
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DRL / Tail Light malfunction

Hi all,

I'm driving a 2000 Chevy Prizm just over 100k miles...

I'm having a strange, recurrent issue...
I think I have a short to ground someplace, because my taillight fuse keeps blowing which causes the dash/tail lights to stop working. Any new fuse I put in continues to blow. My mechanic said the "ground junction harness" was possibly at the root of the problem and repaired it.

Just two days ago my DRL went out, but the regular headlights/taillights still work. So I pulled the DRL relay under the hood (the fuse was ok) to test it for continuity--the brass prongs registered but the silver ones did not. I left the unit pulled thinking I'd go buy a new relay to see if that fixed the problem.

Well my headlights wouldn't turn on, so I put the old DRL relay back in until I was able to go out and get a new one. This turned my headlamps on and everything was fine, until I dropped the hood of the car to close it. As soon as it slammed the parking lights went out and my tail lights with them. The taillight fuse had blown again, and now I'm back to sqare one with no DRL, no headlamps (when I turn my steering column to headlamps the DRL come on), no taillights, no parking lights, and no dash lights, and a continually blowing fuse.

Mind you, turn sigs/brakes/emergencies still work fine.

I think I must have a short someplace that's getting jarred and blowing the fuses--could this be the DRL module? I did install an aftermarket CD player but I don't think I pinched any wires--could that have something to do with this?

I'm leaving the state in a week and I'd like to know what's up before I haul out of here...otherwise I guess I won't do much nighttime driving...

Thanks!
 
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Old 05-27-08, 10:19 AM
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first off you defantly have some kind of short, second you will need to start some wiggle test on the different circuts. also you really need to access a wireing diagram to see which particular circuts use that fuse. try your local library many have auto repair manuals on microfilm or access to services like alldata. heck one thing to try is start unplugging each light circut at time and slamming the hood to see if that stops blowing the fuse. that would be a fast way to isolate the bad circute.

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Old 06-05-08, 09:09 PM
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Ok, update...

So I took it to the mechanic, who ran a completely new ground from the DRL module to the chassis. This fixed both problems; headlights came on, DRL came on, dash and tail lights worked fine.

Tonight I drove it to a bar with my headlights on and everything working perfectly. I went in, had a meal, came out, and now the fuse is blowing again, so I have no running lights.

Nothing happened to jar the wiring, I can't imagine that I displaced anything on the drive over, I did nothing to drive abnormally from how I usually drive.

Any thoughts?
 
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Old 06-05-08, 09:20 PM
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i am sorry but you still havn't found the underlying problem, you will have to check each circut by unplugging each componet to find where the short is. it will probably be quite time consumming. has any body work been done in the past or any mechanical work been done where a wire could have been pinched, or unplugged? have you pulled the cd player to make sure nothing was pinched or plugged in wrong during the installation? othewise you will have to get a copy of the wireing diagram and trace circuts to find out which componets use the fuses and isolate each one.

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Old 06-06-08, 05:55 AM
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Had similar strange problems with a sunfire,Had to replace the headlight wiring harness,water gets in and rots the substandard wiring,cost you more to try to fix it,you may as well buy a new one.
 
 

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