I got some LED festoon bulbs to replace my courtesy lights, all of which work save the one in the glove box, which I'm assuming is burnt out. Anyway, I replaced the rear hatch, it works. I replace the one in the roof, right over the rear seats...it works. I replace the one in the front of the roof....and that's when the fun begins. All of the lights still work, but they no longer come on when the doors are opened. In fact, they ONLY come on with the doors closed and the lights in the "always on" position. If I open the door, they go out. Oh, and now the rear hatch release (the electronic pull switch) doesn't work...no motor sound at all. WTF?

(I know the interior lights and hatch release are on the same circuit...but if the lights are coming on at any point, then I must not have blown that fuse. Really baffled as to what I could have done...I ONLY swapped out those three bulbs. For grins, I removed the last one I did, but no change...it's still acting crazy).

Anyone seen this before? It got dark so I stopped messing with it for the evening.

 

The light over the mirror acts as a 3 position rocker switch, centered is off always, pressed in the fore or aft position the light will come on when a door is opened, or will be on constant.
Also this dome light is easily shorted out against the roof panel.
I'd suspect the light assembly and not type of bulb.

 

The door pin switches are known to fail as well.

 

Not all, but some, LED bulbs even festoon type are polarized. That is, a positive and a negative side. Sometimes they just wont work if one or all are in backwards, and sometimes, just the one wont work, and sometimes it can pop a fuse or make part of the lighting system work and some functions not work.
This may or may not be your issue, but it's certainly possible.

I should add, I have all LED lighting inside and out and did have to mess with it (interior lights) just a bit due to the polarity thing.

 

As mentioned earlier, I too had issues with my assembly shorting out on the frame.

Also make sure you've got your wires (hot, ground, switched ground) set appropriately on all the fixtures. One of mine was screwed up (don't recall which) and it was causing all sorts of weirdness with doors/hatch open vs. shut. My post working through the issues is here.

 

Oh, that's right as well, if a wire pops off, or if ya pull the whole socket and dont get the wires back on the same post by accident it's just like reversing the polarity and since much of the circuitry is shared among the lights, it's back to weird symptoms!
Oh, and sometimes the little swiper (the switch part) relies on the festoon to make good contact and the small spring force as well. Just sayin' many of us (me) have old and brittle plastic!

 

Thanks for the info... I'll go over everything again. It's just weird that everything was working properly before, but now doesn't, but all lights still light, just at the wrong time.

 

First I would suggest to disconnect the battery,
then remove the lamps from their position,leave the wires connected.

Then I would suggest to put a piece of heat shrink on the ends of every lamp connector.
Make sure that every lamp has the wires set the same way you will have a ground = brown a switched= brown/ white stripe, and a power= red.

Connect the battery to test the wires.

NOTE the hatch has different colors so use the multi meter to find the power wire, and the ground / switched wires
test the lamps so you have the + side connected to your power side of the lamp..

Check the fuses

 

Sounds like a good way to proceed, thanks.

 

Re-reading the thread, and I see you mentioned your glove box light.

The wire on mine going to to the switch had frayed off due to all the disassembly of the box over the years. Might want to check and do all the stuff that Stan advocates for (heatshrink, deoxit, etc).

 

Change the fuse.

Alan

 

It honestly is acting exactly like the fuse, with the exception that they come on in always-on mode with the door open. Or, they were doing so the other night. I just got back (from finding my AC leak, yay) and noticed that the hatch light isnt' coming on at all. I will check that fuse for sure now.

 

Wouldn't they always be off it was an issue with the fuse?

 

Lets see - I can conceive of a path in reverse that can only exist when the fuse is blown and that may be sufficient to illuminate LED's but not incandescent lights.

Alan

 

Hence me asking the question. Although not my thread, thanks for the info!