I have two problems:

1) The front passenger door when open the footwell light comes on but not the ones on the top lights.

2) The car does not seem to hold charge when parked for a few days, worst during winter. The light in the glove box is fixed, the alternator is only 4 yr.s old, went through 5+ batteries in past 3 years. Newest battery is a year old and I heard some where the trunk light might be on but I checked and it's off.

Appreciated if you can help.

 

You will have to check for a parasitic draw with an Amp meter and start pulling fuses and see what the amount of amps being drawn goes down.

 

The answer to your question about the lights is to chexk the dome light assembly. The switch is famous for going bad, and if it does, none of the interior lights except the footwell lights will come on

 

+1 for Psaboic. You could try what is called "Technical Tapping", meaning you want to hit it gently.

One member had a brilliant idea of leaving a digital video cam at where suspected parasite was, and I believe he/she located the problem. This was a long time ago and cannot remember his/her name.

Happy New Year,


JPN

 

Sorry for such a late reply, but do you mean that if the switch goes bad that none of the doors when open will be on other than the footwell lights. B/C my problem is that only when the front passenger door when open, footwell light is on but not the dome lights. The other doors are fine when open with their lights on.

 

That is usually a bad latch.

 

Ditto what tech says here; the parasitic current draw may, or may not, be related to your dome light issue. Nonetheless, you need to track it down. If you don't know how to do this or need a walk-thru, shout back; measuring current is not the same as measuring voltage.

Good luck.

 

Yes a walk thru would be nice, and where's the latch?

 

Here is a write up, http://www.wikihow.com/Find-a-Parasitic-Battery-Drain

Make sure all doors are closed while you are doing this, or you will get false readings.

 

ok i have the same problem with my 850 you can open any door and the dome lights don't light only the foot lights can it be fixed or i have to buy another dome light assembly????

 

Good link Dan2286! Thanks for saving me the time to do the write up.

But to that write up, i would add these tips; at least this is the way I would do it:

- Regarding step 1; you will have the hood up so if you have an underhood lamp, make sure it is unplugged. The key should be off and removed from ignition for several minutes before doing the test (i.e. let all the modules go into sleep mode). Loosen the negative battery cable but don't disconnect it yet. Connect the ammeter across the negative battery terminal connection; plus meter lead to the cable; minus meter lead to the battery negative terminal post (use big enough clip to be able to clamp onto the battery terminal). Make sure the meter is set to the highest current measurement scale it will go to initially. Carefully disconnect the negative battery cable from the battery terminal; now any current flowing from/through the battery will be going through the meter. Assuming your meter is not over-ranging (it should be under-ranging), turn the scale down until you're reading current within the readable range/scale.

BTW; you want to use a meter that has overload or fused protection for current measurments.

Like the article said, you should see a current reading of less than 100 mA or so. If you have a parasitic current draw you will see more than that; note the measurement. Read the whole article; there's good info there. Shout back with any questions (or answers too).