OOPS. Didn't read a sticky until now! Here's this thing: Car: 2007 WRX Limited Wagon Modifications: Grimmspeed Downpipe, NF tune Problem Description: Lights behaving abnormally Recent Modifications/Maintenance: See "modifications". Recently changed low beam bulb (RH), oil 400 miles ago. Yeah, I'm pretty desperate to get these stupid things fixed. They've been iffy - when I bought my car (07 WRX wagon) the front passenger low beam went out almost immediately. I changed it (making sure not to touch the bulb with my fingers, I used surgical gloves), and it still didn't work. In my frustration, I tried simply smacking (not too hard) the entire fixture from the front, and lo and behold, the stupid thing turned on. "Okay, this is surely going to work forever and I'll never need to do anything to it again" I said to myself. A few months later (last weekend), I went to start the car and it wouldn't - the battery was dead. I charged it up, started just fine, business as usual. I figured out why the battery was drained - the rear drivers side brake light stays on (low... I don't know how the hell these things work at all, but there's a brightness level while braking and a brightness level while the headlights are on - it's the latter). The passenger's side brake light does NOT stay on. Yesterday, while getting my car worked on, the passenger low beam stopped working again, and now the rear passenger side brake light is out as well. I have a really hard time believing all these things are because of dead bulbs. My theories (which are probably wrong): * A wire got stripped a little bit somewhere, and is grounding out on the body * The headlight switch is wonky and needs to be replaced * My car is haunted, and I need an exorcist If anyone has any ideas for this that can lead to me fixing it, I would be eternally grateful. If anyone in the St. Cloud area would be willing to poke around the car with me and try to determine what's wrong, I would be willing to pay whatever you think is fair once it's fixed. Pleeeeeease awesome subaru community, you're my only hope! (before bringing it to the dealership.) Thanks in advance.
For the front headlights, do you have the plastic/rubber headlight sockets? They can melt if you have a bulb with abnormally high resistance (resistance=heat). I replaced mine with ceramic ones (both headlights) for $10 shipped. Then when they melt, sometimes the bulb works, and jiggling it can turn it on/off. Not sure about anything else.
As in the part that mounts directly to the bulb? I'm pretty sure it is plastic, but I"d have to check again - I honestly don't remember very well. While I don't know what is causing the problem, I would think that one central issue is causing all three of the symptoms I described (otherwise it would have to be a pretty huge coincidence, wouldn't it?) I haven't checked my fuses yet - I'll do that this afternoon when I get some free time @ work. Wouldn't a blown fuse make the lights go out entirely, not this half-on/half-off BS? If not, what kind of things should I look for in the fuse box?
No, I had a fuse blow on me a few times last winter. Only my driver's side headlight would go out. It blew the few 3 or 4 times and only one headlight would go out and it was only the low beam. Then i found the problem. A rock had busted up my fog lights, and my fog light bulb. I didn't notice the fog being out. However, due to the way they were wired it kept blowing out my dirver's side low beam. So it is possible that it is just a fuse. it is also possible that something is broken and causing both the fuse to blow and the low beam to go out. Start with the fuse, see if that is a cause. Check all of your fuses.
Correct. A fuse is either on or off. They don't half-assed fail and teeter between states intermittantly. There are too many factors to determine what's killing the battery. It could be a long winter, an old battery, a short, something plugged in (I've seen USB lighter outlets with an LED on them that stays on all the time that kills batteries in less than a week....my Z is currently down because of that) The headlamp problem, especially the "I slapped it and it worked" leads me to believe something mechanical is to blame....mechanical as in the connectors are loose, cracked or making bad contact. That's something you can usually find by simply turning on the lights, opening the hood, and "fiddling" with the wires leading into it. Try light tugging, wiggling, whatever. If it is a loose wire or a crapped out connector, you'll know usually within a few minutes. The fact that it turned on when you smacked the headlamp enclosure leads me to believe that, whatever the problem is, it is centralized inside the headlamp assembly, and not somewhere in the wiring. As far as the taillight staying on, I would have to look at how that circuit works. I believe it is on a relay. And since the lamps work independent of the ignition (meaning, you can turn them on and off without turning the car on) that means that the voltage is always fed to them and they are simply waiting for the circuit to be complete. There could be a pinched line, a bad relay, something is making it so that the constant 12v applied to the lamp is making a complete circuit somewhere. You would need a wiring diagram, but you could use a multimeter and test voltage along the entire path to see where exactly the voltage is being applied. To do that, you would simply test the wire with the red lead, and pin the black lead to your chassis (ground) and see if there is voltage. With the circuit closed, there should be NO 12v found on the line anywhere.
Sorry, I should have mentioned that the battery is about 5 months old. While that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't the problem, it was only after the car sat for 5 days without running that the battery died. I don't drive every day, since I can walk to work. I don't have anything plugged into the lighter socket. I hope this is the issue. I will procure a multimeter this afternoon and check this out. Is this -> http://www.modifiedlife.com/2007-subaru-wrx-car-alarm-wiring-chart/ <- a wiring diagram? I've never seen one before, so I'm not sure if that's what I'm looking for, but it was one of the top results when I googled.
Just throwing this out there...but do you have your parking lights on? As stupid as this sounds, we have the same year WRX and I can't remember if they have the parking light switch on the steering column like my old '99 RS did. I'm thinking that could potentially be the tail light issue maybe paired with the fact that one that isn't on might have a burnt out bulb?
No, a wiring diagram will be a visual representation of the circuitry in your car. They are hard to read sometimes if you aren't experienced, but if you can find one, I might be able to decipher it for you. That link is just a pinout wire reference for wiring up an alarm system. It doesn't tell you where those wires are located or where they run and where they are fed from.
I would also check to see if any of those items are a neutral trigger. IIRC, a bunch of circuits on subarus are neutral trigger. This might not be the case, but I will explain with a simple circuit. Tail light has 2 wires, one is the hot the other is the ground. Neutral trigger means that 12v is at the bulb all the time and the ground wire gets "grounded" to make the light turn on. Positive trigger means that the ground wire is "grounded" all the time and 12v is applied to make the light turn on. This is important because if you have a neutral trigger and you test the buld wires, you may think you have a problem that does not exist. If you use a different location for getting your ground and test both of the bulb wires, you will get some skewed results. Negative trigger will read that you have 1 hot wire and the the other is dead, which will tell you that the light should be on. Then you want to test the dead wire to ground to see if there is continuity. Basically instead of switching 12v on/off to make the circuit work, you are switching the ground on/off to make it work. Russ
Dropped it off at the dealership after realizing that trying to track down this problem on my own is going to lead to me either having an aneurism or the car being out of commission this weekend (been planning a small trip for this weekend for 5 months now). I checked every possible relay and connector that I could find - the relays were all good, and no amount of wiggling would even make it turn on momentarily. I wish I had more time to fix this, but unfortunately I have to be on the road tomorrow afternoon if I want to keep my reservations at the B&B. I'll post the resolution once they figure it out for me and then point and laugh as it's the most simple thing in the universe that even a child would be able to diagnose.
No shame in it dude. Last fall I took two jugs of Rotella T6 and a filter to Valvoline instant oil change because we wanted to take the Z out and drive it on one of the last warm days of the year and didn't want to piddle around with the oil change. Sometimes it is better to just let someone else handle it and get it done fast without alot of drama.
Turns out 5 total bulbs blew out, all around the same time, and it was just a coincidence. I had no idea that was possible - I guess I'm just lucky! I asked them about the tail light staying on, they told me it doesn't (could replacing the other bulbs have seriously fixed this? I am at a loss for words.) Thank you to all who tried to diagnose my car when the problem was the owner.
