Rear light PITA

[Mark Type R]

The rear lights on the right side have decided to play up, Its where the fog light mod has been put in.
Its played up before but after a wiggle they were alright.
A bloke at work stopped me today to tell me i had a bulb out but when i got home i managed to get it working, only to find out the 2nd brake light on the same cluster has stopped working.

I can't see any obvious loose wires so i spat my dummy :lol:

Anybody know a good auto electrician in the Staffordshire area?

Cheers

 

[Chris.]

Sure there's no water getting in?

 

[Mark Type R]

Its dry as a bone mate

It has done it before but a bit of a wiggle and it was ok. Now its given up completely.

Im hoping that it will cost about £20 just to have a look and wire it back up

 

[Chris.]

Checked the bulbs and fuses?

 

[Mark Type R]

Yeah, ive even had one working then the other, then neither and ive now settled on the left one :lol:

 

[Mark Type R]

Ok, ive just come back from getting the lights sorted. Im completely confused!

The first garage said that i have power so its the bulb.
I went to get a bulb and fitted it, it didn't work. So i had a mess with the wires and both stopped working. Took it to a second garage next to the parts place and he checked it over, again he said that it had power so didn't know why it wasn't working.
Checked the bulbs and one had blown (luckily i had bought 2). So he fitted the new bulb and its all working!!?? He said i'd fitted the bulb the wrong way.

This is the part that confuses me, When the light originally stopped working i swapped the bases over and the light that wasn't working worked, the light that was working didn't.

How can it be the bulb if it worked in one side and not the other?

Anyway, its working now :lol:

I need a drink

 

[rossy t]

mark,

in beemers if a bulb is out it tells you on the dashboard what bulb has gone. all well and good, but sometimes it reports incorrect information. recently i had a problem where it said "check brake light bulb", i could see it was the nearside that was not working. so i pulled it out, checked it and it seemed fine. plugged it back in and it worked again. then in a few days i got the message again, i went and had a look and the bulb looked ok, so i swapped the bulbs from each side. the "faulty" bulb was working fine on the other side of the car. in the end i pulled out all the bulbs from the rear cluster on both sides, sidelight, foglight, some other sidelight and it was a random sidelight bulb on the working side to that had gone pop and was causing the problem elsewhere in the circuit.

moral of the story: if you have a bulb that won't work check all the other bulbs and it could be another one causing it to stop working.

 

[Mark Type R]

Aaah, wise words sir, wise words.

Thats most probably whats happened, bring back the days when candles lit the road and the local jolly AA man used to walk in front of your car. A quick doff of the cap and you're away.