Hey All,

Quick question for for ya. I've had marvelous luck with the lack of problems with my 993T, however, of course it's not uncommon for something small to pop up. Guess what...it has! Suddenly, for some reason, the small courtesy light above the ignition switch has decided to stay on in my 993T (of course it killed the battery). I went through a door lock-unlock cycle a few times, opened and closed the doors & hood a few times, etc. to no avail. Also, while attempting to charge the battery with the usual battery charger, the green "fully charged" light on the charger meter started to blink quickly for no discernible reason. I replaced it with a second, identical charger...which did the exact same thing. This made me think that perhaps there's a circuit open, or something like that....

Is this something that's fairly common?

 

Mine goes on and off with the interior lights. First time I hearing of this, hope you get it sorted out soon.

 

Your's won't go off, and mine won't go on!

I have a new bulb (<$2) and plan to have this replaced in Spring.

 

Are you sure your front compartment light is switching off when the lid's closed? I have a vague recollection that they're linked.

 

I'm not actually sure that the front boot light goes off. However, now that you mention it, I seem to remember that the interior lights in general were not going off (when set in the middle position) when the doors were closed...so now that I think about it a bit, it sounds like a stuck/faulty door switch to me.

 

If one of your door switches is faulty the window relay will also be energised when the doors are shut which is further current draw to kill the battery.

 

Battery successfully killed, and now on the charger. I guess new door switch(s) are on the short list, right next to installing the new window lift switches!

I can't bitch much, though...have not really had much in terms of this little stuff in the 10 years I've had the car.

 

Um, one less thing for us MY1996 owners to worry about...

 

You can push down the locking mechanism on the front boot (the thing that grabs the metal loop) - the light should go off (both in the boot and the light above the key) - you can pull the hood latch and the locking mechanism will pop back up/lights will go on.

 

So you're saying that I should basically "reset" or otherwise check to make sure that the hood lock switch is not sticking?

In any event I'm going to check that out to see if it's involved with the problem. it sounds like a good way to at least eliminate one possible source.

 

yup, seemed like an easy way to rule out/in the hood switch...

 

are the interior lights staying on in the middle position with doors closed?

 

If pressing down the locking mechanism on the front hood turns off the ignition switch courtesy light, wouldn't that mean the courtesy light is controlled by the hood latch?

Do this test: Put one or both of the interior lights in the middle position, so that it or they are controlled by the switches on the door posts. Close doors. If you have a bad door post switch, interior lights will stay on after the 15 second delay. You can bypass the delay by turning the ignition key to the on position.

 

I'm going to be doing exactly that test....now that the battery is fully charged. I recall that I had killed the battery once before because the interior lights (in the middle position) did not go out when the doors were closed.

After that 'lil test, I'm going to experiment with the hood latch closure and see if that has an effect.