Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Interior light stay on

This just happened yesterday. The interior lights stay on when the car is running. i thought it might be a door switch but the lights go off when the car is off. any ideas. thanks in advance for any help.

is your dome light switch set to "on?" as opposed to "door?"

sorry forgot to say. the dome light will go off if i switch it to off but the footwell lights will stay on in any position.

hmm...sounds possibly like the dome light dimmer knob. this crazy thing tripped me out when i first got my car and i had to call the prior owner and ask him for help.

to the right of the steering wheel is the interior light dimmer knob. if you turn it all the way, it will "click". do not allow it to click. i believe that keeps the light all on the time and may subject you to being yelled at by your father in regards to the electricity bill. oh, sorry, flashbacks.

The problem is not the dome light position set to ON, because it's off when the car is off. I had this problem once, I don't know if it's the same for you... It may be a short circuit with some ground around the car. The way the lights work is by switching the negative (instead of the positive like most switched electrical circuits). So if a negative wire coming from the doors or going to the foot lights is touching a ground that comes on while the car is on, it will be on always when the car is on and off while the car is off. If you want to fix it, you may need to check all the wire all the way.

It happened to me when I modded my interior lights. I plugged neons to my foot lights so they could lit up when I oppened my door, but I wanted them so be switched also, but I didn't know it was the negative that was wired for the interior lights, so the same problem as you occured. I just fixed my circuit to make it work correctly.

I had a similar problem. The lights are on a timer. If I waited for the 10 or 15 seconds before starting the engine, the lights would go out. If I started the engine before the lights went out, they'd stay on. There is a timer module in the fuse box under the left side of the instrument panel that could be the culprit but my problem went away after I replaced my battery. Just taking power away from the system seemed to straighten everything out.
Karl

Have you had your car washed recently?
I had this problem right after I got my car. Turns out the car-wash guy had moved the dimmer wheel all the way over to the 'on' position when he cleaned the dash.

Thanks for all of the suggestions. the dimmer switch on the dash for mine at least has never had a a part that clicks to turn the lights on. the dome light is the only switch to turn on the interior lights. i will have time this weekend to check things out, but thanks again for all of the suggestions.