"Lights On" Light is off

Discussion in 'Technical' started by BrEnNo1023, Sep 9, 2011.

  1. BrEnNo1023

    BrEnNo1023 New Member

    I hope this isn't making you all roll your eyes and say 'not another one of these threads' D: but I have a very confusing problem. Once upon a time not too long ago, every time i applied the brakes and every time i turned the headlights on, a little lamp in the dash would illuminate a 'Lights On' notification telling me for some reason that the lights are activated. At first i thought it was a quirky little feature, but then i figured maybe it's essential for letting the driver know the lights are operative?

    The problem is that little light has mysteriously stopped working...all the lights on the car work, the only thing that's changed is that lamp in the dash no longer lights up. This happened around about the same time that I took the previous owner's ferrari fail-lights offs and stuck the factory ones back on. Since then the lamp has stayed dark. Anybody have experience with this issue?
    Cheers for the help in advance!
     
  2. davewatson

    davewatson Member

    Im intrigued also - mine does random on off - just randomly though, no pattern to it :(
     
  3. BrEnNo1023

    BrEnNo1023 New Member

    No pattern at all? It doesn't just turn itself on and off when you push and release the brake pedal? Now that's just crazy. I'd understand if it was broken completely and *never* worked, but yours only sometimes fails? that's like my front left indicator; only sometimes stopped working, and fixed itself one day while i was driving. turns out it was tied to the indicator connector behind the front bumper with about 6 inches of speaker wire :eek:
    I'm afraid to find out just how much speaker wire and cheap electrical tape is holding my new Z and its electrical system together.
     
  4. 300ZXC

    300ZXC #TEAMROB

    That lamp is to tell you that one of the lights in your brakelight assembly is NOT working.

    When you put your foot on the brake and the little black box doesn't get the right response from the circuit (ie. something's wrong) that light illuminates to tell you so. When you turn the lights on it illuminates the taillights as well (as I'm sure you know) and the same thing happens; the black box doesn't get the right response and lets you know something's up.

    Cheers,
    Tom :zlove:
     
  5. BrEnNo1023

    BrEnNo1023 New Member

    That's strange, because i checked all the lights and indicators on all 4 corners and they all seemed to work fine, yet the 'lights on' lamp stayed on.
    :rofl: oh well, all the lights work, so never mind. thanks for the enlightenment Tom (yes pun intended), i guess that's /thread then
    Cheers!
     
  6. 300ZXC

    300ZXC #TEAMROB

    Perhaps you have a faulty 'lil black box' then :p

    I'm sure one of those who are more experienced with the little black box will chime in soon enough! :D
     
  7. quickzx

    quickzx Member

    if all the lights work and your still getting the problem then ditch the black box and drive on as usual :)
     
  8. BrEnNo1023

    BrEnNo1023 New Member

    I'm thinking that since the light's finally gone away and all the lights are functional that this is the proper course of action :p
    but just for the sake of clearing things up, what is this little black box we're speaking of?
    and by 'ditch it', d'you mean 'don't worry about it?' or 'locate it, rip it out and bin it'?
     
  9. quickzx

    quickzx Member

    Lol wait are you saying now that the "lights finally gone away" that when you press the brake pedal it doesn't light up? If so then you dont have a problem and everything is functioning as it should. All the little light does is when you press the brake pedal if you have blown a tail light globe it will illuminate to tell you that you have blown a globe so you know to check them. If your tail lights are working properly and the "lights" light doesn't illuminate when you touch the brake pedal then your fine.

    The little black box is on the drivers side behind the tail light just behind the little panel you remove to get access to the globes. If your globes are functioning correctly and you are sure of this but the "lights" light is still illuminating when you touch the break pedal then just pull the black box out and it wont light up your dash every time you hit the breaks (these little black box's are know to fail). You don't have to remove it, its just annoying when the light comes on every time you hit the breaks, if you can live with it then don't stress.



     
  10. Cove

    Cove Getting to be an old fart

    LED's can effect the current drawn

    Have you recently changed to LED's or more likely to LED's
     
  11. Red-Z

    Red-Z Red-Z

    You probably fixed the problem when you replaced the "ferrari" lights with the originals. If the current the "f" lights were drawing was different to standard the black box would have thought that one light was not working and warned you by lighting up the dashboard warning light. Now you've gone back to the correct lights all is well.
     
  12. pexzed

    pexzed Forum Administrator

    Simple

    Pull out a brake light bulb and press the brake pedal and see if the "Lights" light illuminates.
     
  13. BrEnNo1023

    BrEnNo1023 New Member

    Lol yup, I reckon that's done it. When i got the car it had the ferrari fail lights on, and I'd always thought that "lights on" light was simply telling me that the lights were all 'on' and functioning XD turns out its purpose is to highlight the exact opposite. Oh well, all seems to be perfectly fine now i've put the factory tail lights in. Car looks much better and I have no warning lights on my dash anymore. ^.^
    You learn something new every day. Thanks!
     

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