Doug_B_928

My sun visor mirror lights work. That is, this is not a problem with the lights themselves. Rather, seems to be the ground/power connection on the sun visor. What happened is I noticed that the light on the driver's side worked, then I put the sun visor in the side window position, then put it back into its normal position with the connections to power the light. But after this the light would not come on. Then I checked the passenger side the same way with the same result. So I assumed that the power/ground connections needed cleaning. I took some sand paper and gently cleaned the contacts on the driver's side, but no joy. Anybody else have and solve this problem? Should I get some electrical contact cleaner or something else?

jhbrennan

The electrical current for the visor mirror lights comes from the clip that holds the visor in place. Are you sure the visor is attached firmly to that clip. If you pull the visor out to block the sun on the side you'll see the mirror light no longer works.

Doug_B_928

Yes, the sun visor is attached firmly in place (after having been out, which is what disrupted the contacts to begin with). For some reason the contacts aren't making a good connection. Would Deoxit be the next thing to try?

jhbrennan

Unlikely for all the bulbs to go out but have you checked them?

Doug_B_928

I didn't because I thought the odds of that were too low. I thought there were two bulbs per sun visor, but haven't had time to look into it yet. When I get a chance I'll check.

slicky rick

Do the contacts align?

Doug_B_928

Yeah, and I tried rotating the sun visor into different positions to see if it would make a connection, but nada. The sun visors were not forced out. It's really strange.

nikandriko

• I had the same thing on the driver's side. Both bulbs were out since I bought the car, seemed unlikely both had failed.
  
  
• Using a screwdriver I opened up the cover of the driver's sun visor (there are 4 holding points up/down/left/right), the bulbs showed no signs of going bad. As a test I took one of the bulbs and using the screwdriver's metal for conductivity, I wired one bulb to the passenger's sun visor contacts (where the passenger's sun visor attaches to the car) and the bulb turned on.
  
  
• Then, after realizing that the bulb is functional, I reassembled the driver's sun visor and pressed the contact. Both bulbs came on. Seems like the contacts were the issue. After pressing them a couple of times, they now remain on depending a bit on the angle of the sun visor.

Diagram for disassembling the sun visor to get access to the bulbs

Sun Visor Contact (which is typically the cause when both bulbs don't turn on .. try pushing it first and see if the bulbs turn on)

Doug_B_928

Yep, it's the contacts. If the mirror light doesn't come on, I just work the visor back and forth a couple of times and it will come on. But I don't dare move the visor to the side window position anymore.