before i wade in and pull everything apart, any ideas or pointers to any common problems would be helpful

was informed last night by a colleague that my number plate lights were out. i went and opened the rear doors and noticed they were working.
when i closed the doors they went off! again on opening they came back on!

im assuming either a bad earth or loose or broken wire, poss in the join between door & van.

the rear light on the N/S does have a slight dimming when hazzards are on, which often denotes the usual bad earth in the wiring loom plug, which i will clean out later.

any helpful info would be cool,

many thanks
Neil

Panic over, found that someone had previously "Repaired" the wiring loom, by soldering in a 3 sections of thicker wire, at least they had used heat shrink over the connections, but one solder joint had broken under the heatshrink, so was making contact when wire stretched as door was opened.

Ah, a secondhand vehicle. WHY would someone fiddle there, unless to add a towbar loom - which would not work since a CANBUS system

The old system for the rear door looms on the pre 2007 vehicles gave a lot of problems, but the new system doesn't seem to bad.