Door Marker Light Voltage

[Citizen]

I converted my door marker lights to LEDs a few years ago. The other day on the passenger door, one of the three marker lights quit working. I naturally thought the LED went bad, so I ordered and replaced the bad bulb, but the new one didn’t work either.


I know I should have swapped bulbs first before ordering a new one, that’s the lesson here, but I was trying to do my part to help the US economy :) .


Anyway, I checked for voltage in that bad socket, and it came back with .82 DCV (that’s right, “point.eight-two or eighty-two hundredths)”.

How can that be? Shouldn’t I have gotten ~12V (providing no short), or nothing at all? And if the circuit is shorted, wouldn’t all the marker lights for that door be out?

Thanks in advance.

Thomas

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[Bitsyncmaster]

I converted my door marker lights to LEDs a few years ago. The other day on the passenger door, one of the three marker lights quit working. I naturally thought the LED went bad, so I ordered and replaced the bad bulb, but the new one didn’t work either.




Anyway, I checked for voltage in that bad socket, and it came back with .82 DCV (that’s right, “point.eight-two or eighty-two hundredths)”.

How can that be? Shouldn’t I have gotten ~12V (providing no short), or nothing at all? And if the circuit is shorted, wouldn’t all the marker lights for that door be out?

Thanks in advance.

Thomas

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Broken connection inside the door. First make sure your LED is not polarized (rotate the LED 180 deg.). Then you may be able to pull the wires out enough to find the splices (may be socket spices). If not you need to pull the lower door panel. Don't know why you would read 0.82 volts unless the broken connection is marginal.

[Citizen]

Broken connection inside the door. First make sure your LED is not polarized (rotate the LED 180 deg.).

Yes, was aware and tried that. No joy.


If not you need to pull the lower door panel.

Sure was hoping to avoid that, but may have to bite the bullet.


Don't know why you would read 0.82 volts unless the broken connection is marginal.

Thought maybe I had a bad VOM (it's happened to me before), but this one seems to be good.

I'll look for a bad spice and report back. Thanks.

Thomas

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[Starglider]

Is the passenger side door switch still triggering the courtesy and door warning lights ok? I agree it's probably the wiring, but bad switch contacts are another possibility.

[Citizen]

Reporting back;

I pulled the socket and was able to pull enough wire to view the closest socket splice inside the door, just as Dave suggested. It looked ok, but right near it was some frayed insulation, although the wire itself appeared ok. But when I jiggled the wire a bit, the LED came on. It also stayed on as I replaced the rubber socket housing back in the door, and replaced the lens.

I was not able to pull enough wire out to effect a repair.

So for now, I'm going to leave it alone since it appears to be holding. Could be that after some rough driving, the wire may deteriorate again, and I'll have to dive into the door after all, but I'll deal with that in the future.


Is the passenger side door switch still triggering the courtesy and door warning lights ok? I agree it's probably the wiring, but bad switch contacts are another possibility.

Yes, the door switch appears to be working ok.

Thanks for the quick responses guys.

Now, it's on to that stuck down driver's toll window...


Thomas (citizen of the world)

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[Domi]

Same things happened to my driver's door and it was only a bad connection near the socket.