Okay i need a little help here. I have couple of electrical gremlins that I can't figure out. First one is every time I start my car the windshield wipers swipe 3 times, then stop. The switch is turned off, so I have no idea why it does that. Also my dome light does not turn on when either the door is opened or when the light switch is turn to right. But if they work when you press the buttons on the light itself. Also my key fob will only pop open the trunk, not the doors. But they work when you press the switch on the door panel. Any ideas ?
Electrical gremlins
- Thread starter squirlye
- Start date
Yikes. Okay, here goes (I hope you have a digital multimeter):
1) Wipers: sounds to me like you have an exposed wire or something in your steering column. The wiper switch has all it's wires there, as are the ignition wires. If it only does it when the car starts, my guess is that the wiper wire for ON is touching the ignition wire for START. It wipes 3 times because that's about how long you hold the key in the start position? To troubleshoot this, you have a couple options. A) remove the steering column trim pieces, track down the wire for the wipers, and see if comes even remotely close to the ignition wires. B) it's possible you could have a bad wiper switch C) you could pop the plug wire off the coil (or disable the plugs some other way if you don't have a coil) and turn the car over - see if the wipers go while you are holding the key in the START position. Try holding it in the start position for varying lengths of time, confirm that the wipes stay on while in START, and not just go 3 times. Once you get more info here, post it back and we'll go from there.
2) Dome light: there are actually 3 lights in the dome light, two map lights and then a center light that comes on when the doors are open. Are you saying the two map lights work when the the switches are pressed, but the center dome light doesn't come on when the doors are open? If so, most likely you have a burnt out bulb. Replace the bulb, then try again.
3) Key Fob: so it sounds like the fob doesn't unlock the doors, but it does pop the trunk. If the door switch panels work, then the issue is probably in the controller that the fob talks to to unlock/lock the doors. Do you have a known good fob? And if so, does that one also fail to unlock the doors? In other words, are you sure the fob works properly? If yes, then you are going to have to go digging in your doors to get to the controller for the door unlocking. I think that's where it is located - I'll have to look it up in my manuals.
What year is your car?
1) Wipers: sounds to me like you have an exposed wire or something in your steering column. The wiper switch has all it's wires there, as are the ignition wires. If it only does it when the car starts, my guess is that the wiper wire for ON is touching the ignition wire for START. It wipes 3 times because that's about how long you hold the key in the start position? To troubleshoot this, you have a couple options. A) remove the steering column trim pieces, track down the wire for the wipers, and see if comes even remotely close to the ignition wires. B) it's possible you could have a bad wiper switch C) you could pop the plug wire off the coil (or disable the plugs some other way if you don't have a coil) and turn the car over - see if the wipers go while you are holding the key in the START position. Try holding it in the start position for varying lengths of time, confirm that the wipes stay on while in START, and not just go 3 times. Once you get more info here, post it back and we'll go from there.
2) Dome light: there are actually 3 lights in the dome light, two map lights and then a center light that comes on when the doors are open. Are you saying the two map lights work when the the switches are pressed, but the center dome light doesn't come on when the doors are open? If so, most likely you have a burnt out bulb. Replace the bulb, then try again.
3) Key Fob: so it sounds like the fob doesn't unlock the doors, but it does pop the trunk. If the door switch panels work, then the issue is probably in the controller that the fob talks to to unlock/lock the doors. Do you have a known good fob? And if so, does that one also fail to unlock the doors? In other words, are you sure the fob works properly? If yes, then you are going to have to go digging in your doors to get to the controller for the door unlocking. I think that's where it is located - I'll have to look it up in my manuals.
What year is your car?
ttocs
Post Whore
check the multifunction switch(turn signals/wipers/brights) for shorts/problems by simply tapping on the column in a few spots while the car is running too see if you can get it to do it again. Three swipes is how many it does when you activate the wiper/cleaner function it might just be turning that option on.
for the dome light I would start at your fuse box and see if there are any missing or blown. Just pull/inspect each fuse it only takes a few mins to do the whole box(don't forget the one by the hood).
what does your remote look like? What brand is it?
for the dome light I would start at your fuse box and see if there are any missing or blown. Just pull/inspect each fuse it only takes a few mins to do the whole box(don't forget the one by the hood).
what does your remote look like? What brand is it?
