I'm having a problem regarding my rear taillights. When I have my rear foglights on and either I signal right or have my hazards on, I get the rear signal rh MIL. If I turn off the rear fogs all is well.

Heres whats making this difficult, when that error comes on my reverse lights come on really dim, so do the rear fogs, the signals works, and my left LED goes out. As soon as I turn the rear fog off the reverse lights shut off, as do the rear fogs, and my left LED powers back up.

Also when I reverse the puddle lights on the mirrors light up and my mirror doesnt angle down.

Any techs that can help me trouble shoot this wiring gremlin ?

I checked the bulbs on the rightside and all were good, I couldnt get into the left side because of the disc changer. The fuses are good and the battery is fairly new and has plenty of cranking power.

Please this is starting to freak me out.

 

The lights also go into said mode when I put my seat heater on... Any chance this is a voltage thing where as theres not enough juice to power everything and it puts it into some kind of safety mode ??

 

Hi front or rear seat heaters? I ask cause the first thing that came to my mind was a bad ground for the tail lamps. Usually when you have a bad ground the power will try to find a suitable ground and will cause other lights to be dim lights. You need to find what the common link is to the affected components. George.

 

This was for the front seat heaters, I havent tried the rear seaters and honestly I dont remember if I have rear heaters or not.

What should be my first move ? replace all the bulbs ? and vissually inspect the wiring ?

I already checked the wiring on the right rear and I guess I need to uninstall both taillamps and back track from there.

Im also going to get a multimeter today and check the power at the battery and the bulb harness for power and grounding issues.

Its not an issue at all as long as I dont use the rear fogs or seat heaters, but I definately like using the rear fogs and the seat heaters !

 

Hey, adding a second ground to your tail lights would be the simplest test you could do. It does sound power/ground related, but other than that, I am useless.

 

I have new bulbs to put on with some electrical cleaner spray and bulb grease. Thing is it too cold out at around 20-25 degress f, so it has to wait.

I have a crack in my left headlight and a parking light out, I'm hoping but doubt that is the problem. I also purchased a multimeter, so Im going to learn how to use that in my basement where its nice and warm then start testing everything.

The current bulbs all are working fine (except for the front parking light) but they did look rather old and cloudy, so maybe the grounds there are a bit dirty and new bulbs plus cleaning and grease would help.

The truck area behind the panels was dusty right around the taillamps, I think the previous owner lived down a dirt road or dusty town in NewJersey because there was dust everywhere on this car. Again Im hoping its something simple as a bad single ground and not something fuse panel related.

I have the JTIS cd can anyone explain how to get to the eletrical diagram showing the main harness so I can sort of find the common link between the lights,and seat heaters ??

 

instead of going to the 'service' button on the JTIS, there's a separate electrical button, but all the documents here are pdf based, no fancy interface like the repair area. I think the table of contents is pretty good, or it is searchable by keyword. best of luck!

 

I think Im in hot water here.....

 

Make sure you read the first couple of pages of the PDF it tells you what all the symbols mean. Also there is a grounding point diagram too. I would check all your fuses and grounding points.

 

Check the trunk grounds for the rear electronic control module in the trunk right side. Your lights are negative triggered through the r.e.m. And have constant power. Since your state your seat heaters are messing up too which are also controlled by the rem. I would say thats your problem. Unplug the connector and check for corrosion, plug back in and then do a hard battery reset. If this doesnt fix your problem your gonna need a rem

 

Thats the box behind the panel of the rear right side, level with the sparetire height wise right ? When its warmer hopefully tomorrow Im going to remove both left and right panel, along with the trunk floor and spare tire and check every harness and pin for corrosion or bad ground. Clean and grease them.

I can avoid all of this by simply not using the rear fogs or seat heater but thats only avoiding the problem.

Im really thankfull for all the advice from everybody hopefully I can fix this.



seeing how the lights are all ground switched, how can I check and make certain that both power and ground levels are appropriate ? When I put the seat heaters on the said symptoms are delayed a few seconds.

 

Just dont go useing a test light to check. Use a good multimeter or youll pull to many amps through a module and let the smoke out of the circuit board

 

Ok thanks I have a brand new multimeter and will go and read the manual on it to see how I can check ground switched circuits. And also do a few searchs online as well, Thanks BRUTAL.

Also Ill do a couple of practice tests on the civic lolss

 

Still battling this issue. I opened up the trunk and remove the REM as advised, cleaned all connections, remove fuse panel ( next to battery ) and there was some kind of oil on that. Clean them up and still same thing.

Ive been trying to source a REM but have been hesitant to pay $150 for one thats on a junk car thats been sitting in the rain/open elements for so long. ughhh

 

Tough one, I thought you had already found the solution to this one.

 

Nah I would have updated if so, Ive had a down computer for a while and cruising this site on my phone is tough.

Its a short somewhere for sure, I need to figure out what to do with that box because as described in the OP all of those features are links to weirding out. I also noticed that when it goes into bugger mode ( with rear fogs or seat heaters on ) the third brake light blinks when I apply brake.

And I keep blowing US Passenger side rear backup bulbs. So something somewhere is fishy.

My Navigation screen kinds of lightly flickers when mny AC is on, and a slight speaker whine with the ac on ?

REM box ? Bad battery ? Bad altenator ? Voltage regulator ?

Why I mention it here is I think they are all directly related to one another.

 

Did you ever come up with a resolution to this problem? My 04 VDP is experiencing almost the exact same problem, and I'm curious what happened with your issue.