JHowell37

I searched and didn't see anything about this particular issue so I'll mention it and see if anyone has experienced something similar. My interior lights are acting a little odd. The two in the hatch and the one in the headliner function normally whether the switch is moved to the "courtesy" (door open) position or to the "on" position. And when in the center position they remain "off" as they should.

The lights in the doors are behaving strangely. The little red light in the passenger's door turns on when the door is opened and turns off when it is closed. The red light in the driver's door is rusted beyond repair so a new one is required. Both of the main lights in the doors turn on the when the switch is moved to the "on" position. They remain off when the switch is turned to "off." When in the courtesy position this is where they act a little strange. When I open the doors, the door lights turn off and the rest of the lights in the car come on. When I close the doors the rest of the lights in the car (i.e. the two in the hatch and one in the headliner) turn off and the door lights come on (except for the red one.) Any ideas as to why these door lights are essentially functioning backwards?

silbershark

What car do you have? How long have you had it?

My courtesy light acts funny, too. The front one comes on when I push in the clutch! I have an extra fuse panel that I'll do a Sharkskin-spiffy job on during the long, rainy PNW winter.

Leon Speed

Are you sure that the door lights are in the courtesy position when you open the door? Sounds like they're in the on position. My suggestion would be to take the lights out and clean all contacts and try again.

pearlpower

Just went through the same, this is most ridiculous interior light design to ever grace a car. Why did they not/could not update it with something reliable is beyond me. Light frame broke causing a short which took out a wire. Removed the interior rear roof to replace the wire, then the fuse, new interior lights (learned this from my prior German cars) and now all is good and working as new (knock on wood as this normally means a couple of months).

VehiGAZ

I have the same problem with my pass door light - all others are fine.

John Struthers

Check the pin switch and good luck on where each of those brown wires actually go

Alan

Do you have LED's in the doors?? if yes its probably just a wiring connection issue. (shouldn't work like this you have regular bulbs though...)

All the lights should have the red (or Green) wire connected directly to the bulb - the Brown wire should be connected to the frame (and one side of the switch) while the brown/white (or White) wire should be connected to the other side of the switch. The Red and Brown wires are probably swapped on the door lights...

The basic design is actually a quite common system for cars of this era. The weak spots on a 928 are the light fittings which tend to break with age due to heat -> brittleness and the rear hatch pin switch which tends to fall apart. Many of the other problems are due to PO idiots who screwed with it with no comprehension of what they were doing...

The system switching features are a bit limited - but its possible to add an all overide on and off switch to add some of the overall control features from more modern designs.

Its more complicated to add soft on/off but this can also be done as can a max on-time (timeout) feature.

Most people are happy when they just work correctly as designed...

Alan