Interior Lighting wont turn off

[anjiluhz]

Ok, here is my problem:
My interior lights will not go off. The lights on my mirror, the floor board lights, and the interior light affixed to the roof. Normally, within 10 seconds of shutting a door, or removing the key from the ignition, they lights would dim out. They remain on. The car has a 'safety feature' that automatically shuts them off, 20 MINUTES later. Rather than deal with this inconvenience I have removed the fuse so that I now have no interior lights.

I need to know what has caused this problem, if it is a relay fuse, if it is something I can fix myself, or somethin I will have to let the dealership fool with.

Any comments, suggestions will be greatly appreciated. ESP if this has happend to you..and you know for CERTAIN what the problem is.

Thanks in advance, for anyone that helps me with this bothersome problem.

[2002GT]

Do you know the spinny thing that controls the dim of your dash? are you sure you didnt click that all the way foward?

[CruzinGT33]

Oh, I was doing some installing a month ago... I guess I brushed against it... I was freakin out for a min... but its all good.

[shaner]

I have the same problem, but my spiiny thing that controls the dim is not push all the way forward. My dome light nor my map lights will not go off. anyone have any suggestons?

[71Z28RS]

Shaner---

There is a lever in the door frame that controls the lights when open and closing the door. It's right by the striker (latch bracket). When you open the door, it springs open and switches the lights on. When you close the door, it pushes the lever in and turns them off. It sounds like your's might be broken or not functioning right.

[PontiacGTboy]

the 99 and up as far as i know work different than the previous years. The lights are activated by the door handle. I dont think there is a tab or button that activates the lighting.

[71Z28RS]

I know the door handle tells it to turn on (one of those nice "see in the car's backseat before you get in" additions), but something else has to tell it when the door is shut, doesn't it? Otherwise, if you opened the door and left it open, the dome lights would shut back off after 10 seconds or so even though the door is still open. I don't have the newer model (obviously), but it doesn't do that, does it? I'd think that it would stay on as long as the door is open. If that's how it works, then there has to be another switch somewhere to tell it the door is shut. If it shut off on it's own, then maybe it is just in the handle.

[PontiacGTboy]

Ok i just went out and played with it. It is something internal in the latch assembly. You pull the handel, the light comes on and goes back after a few seconds. It goes back out because the latch never fully opens. when the car senses that the latch is fully opened, the lights stay on. On the newer modles, if you manually close the latch with the door opened the lights will go out after a few seconds and come back on when you pull on the door handle again.

[AaronGAGT]

I'm thinkin it might be the door jamb switch

[pfofit]

Ditto on the door jam switch. However, there are foor of them.


Some thoughts / experience

They are a bugger to get at . I just had a lumina apart to repair a door unlock problem. You need a couple extra joints in your arm to get it out, after you remove the door panel..

To remove the latch, there are four levers: The outside door handle, the keylock, the inside door handle and the inside door lock lever. Depending on the door panel on the GA they may be hard or easy to get at.

You can try unpluging it to see, but what door do you start with? Is it the one you use the most or the one you don't use. Try opening and closing all doors first if you haven't already done so. Maybe you will get lucky and its just a dirty switch that will clean itself up with a few swipes.

There are two plugs, one for the door closure switch(on top) and another for the door lock/unlock solonoid(towards the bottom of the latch assembly). When i had the lumina latch out or the plugs undone, the lights stayed off.

All door panels come off differently and are easier with the proper tools, howeevr, the trick to not breaking any clips /hooks is to know how it went together.

Of coarse the dealer just hooks up to the body computer and voila , that door there.

good luck.