Hello folks

Been having a problem with my passenger rear lights on my 1.2 Grande Punto.

Brake lights work fine when side light are off.
With the side lights are on the indicator light stays on very dim all the time and the brake light doesn't work.

Ive tried changing bulbs but it makes no difference.

Any ideas what might be causing this?

Thanks

Hi,
It's a bad earth. Either in the cluster itself or the connection from it to chassis. I don't know if the Grande-Punto has an issue with the cluster itself or not. The brake lights are getting their ground through the sidelights and indicators. When the sidelights are on there is 12V on them so brake lights have 12V on each side so they go off. Some fords suffered from this because they used an bit of stamped, tin-plated steel for the holders and connections and it rusted.

Robert G8RPI.

:yeahthat:

Thanks for the replys.

One of the points on the connectors was corroded. Gave it a clean and its all good now.

Thanks

Classic. I had same problems. Stupid design...

The problem is you can't buy those white connections. You have to go to your local car breakers and get a second hand, with a length of cable.
Luckily my local auto electrician gave mine a quick sandblast, which worked. But the probable cause of corrosion, will be the rear window screenwash pipe starting to fail and water running down the wiring loom.

No need to buy a used cable connector. You can find just the terminal lugs on the market and replace them.



Or... You can remove completely the plug style connection and put this terminal type on.



Heat-Shrink tubes and insulation spray and you are done with this silly fiat design...

moby125 said:

The problem is you can't buy those white connections.

Click to expand...

Well actually you usually can if you know where to look, but they're not normally cheap

Visit your local auto electrician. I had this same issue and he just put a new earth in, cost me £15 per side. Can probably do it cheaper yourself but i was getting rid of the car and couldn't be bothered doing anymore.

Or ultimately solder the cables actually on to the pins, cover with heat shrink tubing

moby125 said:

Or ultimately solder the cables actually on to the pins, cover with heat shrink tubing

Click to expand...

This would provide the most reliable connection but would stop you removing the light cluster so easily. May not be a problem of course!

moby125 said:

Or ultimately solder the cables actually on to the pins, cover with heat shrink tubing

Click to expand...

I contemplated doing this, but as Jacob said above it proves very difficult to get the light housing out to replace a bulb. Not worth it in the long run as you'd have a nightmare doing what should be the simplest of tasks on your car.

Just give all the connections a good clean and spray with electrical insulator spray - should sort the issue. If not, it's just a 10 minute job to clean the connections again.