Electrical fault with lights. Help needed asap please..

johnplayerblue

Lads..
I need help with and electrical fault. Its a 93 mk3 golf.
What happens is when i turn on my indicators they sometimes aren't coming on and when they do they go off after 4 or 5 flashes. When they do work the front & side lights flash fine but on the rear the whole panel flashes, brakes indicator and driving light.

Also, my heads and dims went last night and i had to drive with the stalk pulled back to see where i was going. Very scary stuff. Thankfully i was on a very quiet rd.

This happened before and i put a new battery in first to see if there was an issue with that and every thing worked ok and thought it was sorted but now i know its not. All fuses and bulbs are ok. Every thing else seems to be fine electricaly. Any help much appreachiated

mike65

Sounds like one of two things, bad earth at the rear lights or chaffing wiring at the base of the indicator stalk.

Mike.

johnplayerblue

mike65 wrote:

Sounds like one of two things, bad earth at the rear lights or chaffing wiring at the base of the indicator stalk.

Mike.

Would this have a knock on effect for the heads and dims do you think mike.
When i pull the stalk back the lights go to heads but just wont stay on as they should.

mike65

Many years ago I had an 84 Opel Corsa which had similair problems, I replaced the whole stalk, one night I got a shock as I pushed the stalk forwards for main beam and was plunged into darkness luckily I was on a straight.

When wiring goes bad in cars it can have effects far and wide - wiring looms are 'messy', if a problem turns up at one end of the car it can feed through the whole "circuit" which in your case looks after lights.

Mike.

johnplayerblue

Was kinda thinking that myself. Hoping it wasn't the case but i don't think its a diy job. Not with lights or electrics in any case. ****..

crosstownk

Have you replaced any rear bulbs recently? If so you may have the wrong type fitted - this is quite common.

If you haven't replaced the bulbs, then remove the rear bulb holders - including the electrical connection. Check the connection for corrosion - this usually causes poor earthing which results in all sorts of weird things happening with the rear lights. If that doesn't do the trick then it could well be the stalk - but usually, when a stalk in a Golf goes faulty the indicators stop working completely.

You say your heads and dims went but yet you still had heads when you pulled the stalk - do your side lights work? Do the side lights work when you use your parking lights via the indicator stalk, or do you get similar symptoms at the rear lights?

Front lights - have you checked both bulbs - I've regularly seen bulbs blow similtaneously - I don't know the reasoning behind this, but it does happen. If the bulbs don't sort it out, then it could possibly be the light switch itself, again a common fault on VW's

michaelanthony

It could be relays.

crosstownk

michaelanthony wrote:

It could be relays.

No relays for the lighting circuits on a 1993 Golf.

el tel

This is of no real help but just to confirm that such problems are not unheard of. I had a few problems with my own VW e.g. front right headlight lighting very dimly when the brake pedal was pressed and back left brake light working very intermittently. The first problem solved itself and replacing the bulb with a VW sourced one solved the second. Back in the day, any time I was behind a car with wierd goings-on with the lights it was usually a Ford but nowadays its more likely to be a VW of 1993-2000 vintage sadly.

crosstownk

el tel wrote:

Back in the day, any time I was behind a car with wierd goings-on with the lights it was usually a Ford but nowadays its more likely to be a VW of 1993-2000 vintage sadly.

I've seen this too. A lot of the cause of this wrong bulbs. At a glance the bulbs look the same, but on closer inspection the pins are offset and not diametrically opposite each other, but at 'half past ten' if you know what I mean. This causes the contacts at the bottom of twin filament (stop & tail) bulb to make a connection between the brake light circuit and the side light circuit.

cornbb

Just to offer my 2c and echo whats been said already, I've had similar problems with my Corolla which I fixed by replacing all rear bulbs and cleaning the corrosion from their sockets. Sounds strange, but it appears that doing this can sometimes cure bizarre electrical problems.

Also inspect relavant wiring and look for signs of corrosion, scorching, frayed wiring etc.

I know my car is a different make/model but hope that helps anyway.

el tel

crosstownk wrote:

I've seen this too. A lot of the cause of this wrong bulbs. At a glance the bulbs look the same, but on closer inspection the pins are offset and not diametrically opposite each other, but at 'half past ten' if you know what I mean. This causes the contacts at the bottom of twin filament (stop & tail) bulb to make a connection between the brake light circuit and the side light circuit.

Crosstownk you are a mine of information! Had I known that, I wouldn't have had to suffer having no tail light for so long. It was always so embarassing going to the MOT every year and having to demonstrate to the tester that the light did work, but only when when I give it a thump