I’m not much of a car mechanic. Any pointers would be appreciated.
I have an old car. Tonight when I turned the car off the taillights and the front side lights stayed on!
I tried several times (on and off) with the same result. I then tried to (one at a time) take every fuse I could find out but they still stayed on.
Eventually I just disconnected the battery. Any ideas on what could be going on or how to fix this?
Something could have shorted I guess. I have a small rust spot where the windshield meets the roof from too much salt water getting on there.
I put a little bit of silicone sealer and it’s never leaked until maybe today. As I was crawling around under the dashboard looking for the fuses I saw that the carpet was wet for the first time.
If that rusted area is leaking I could fix that no problem but I’m just thinking that maybe some water got on the wires somewhere to cause this stuck lighting problem.
I mention it just because that’s the only other unusual problem that I encountered today.
Seal off the leak and let it dry out. That’s your first step. Not much advice and I’m sure you already know to try it, but really it’s all you can do right now. That and keep your fingers crossed.
It sounds like the tail light relay is partially stuck on probably due to corrosion keeping the lights from shutting off.
The 15amp tail light fuse is at the instrument panel junction block behind the left side of dash at the lower finish panel. The power has to go thru here from the tail light relay to the lights.
Find the tail light relay its in the same place with the fuse and test it if its not in between 40-80 ohms its no good. Regardless of the ohm test I would replace the relay anyways. Electrical problems on old cars are my worst nightmare, Good luck.
I had the same problem in my old Hyundai and in fact it was the lights relay, it’s contacts sometimes stayed welded. To solve it I opened the hood and the relay box, and punch it a little until it un-welded. It was cheaper than buying a very cheap new relay