2005 Pontiac Vibe Repair Question
Mileage: 75,000 miles.
Blown tail light fuse
Asked by robh693Answer
Lets start with what is the fuse labeled that is blowing?
It is the 15 amp Tail light fuse located under the dash. I replaced it with another 15 and that also blew. A 20 amp fuse also blew, then against my better judgement, I put in a 30 amp and quickly turned on the lights to see if they worked and they did, that fuse did not blow and I removed it.
So it blows the moment you turn on parking/running lights?
Yes, instantly. As soon as I turn the stalk to the first position (parking lights) it blows. I can continue to the second position and that still turns on the headlights (but no parking lights) (with the car off, if I had the car running, the DRL's would be on and I couldn't tell if it was them on or the actual headlights).
Usually a instant blowing of the fuse is a dead short on the power side.Do you have a multimeter to do some testing?
Remove the fuse one side of the fuse holder will have power the other side wont.Side that has no power is the side you need to check.Put the multimeter on low ohms scale setting then ground the black lead of the meter.Then use the read lead to check the nonpower side of the fuse holder for a short to ground.Then turn the switch to the on position for the parking lights and see if there is a short to ground.
Alright some of that can just be reading to ground thru the element of the blubs.There is basicially a few ways to go about this one to tearing apart the whole car looking for the issue.A very timely and not really the best choice.There is also to buy a circuit tracer which is about the best choice you would hook it in where the fuse goes it reads out out on the box if you have a open circuit or short to ground.Then you use the wand to follow the signal which is sent down the wires.where the signal stops is where the short is or if you were tracing a open it would stop.Then there is the spliting the circuit up into sub circuits with small 5amp fuses and see which fuse pops and then you can narrow down which part of the sub circuit has the short to ground.Then you will have to start tearing the car apart looking for it.Non of the three ways mentioned is going to be easy the easiest way is with the circuit tracer.Which way would you like to try?
Since I should only be dealing with the 4 corners of the car, and it is a bare bones Vibe, I'm going to trace the wires back from the bulbs.