Technical Is my car trying to tell me something?

[Renegade_8]

Another day another niggling electrical problem. About 2 months ago arrived home and no reversing light as I parked. Next morning checked the fuse then the bulb, both good so tried it again and it was working fine. Same fault aand result last night/this AM. I am gonna swap out the switch on the gearbox anyway, but, anyone had an intermittent like this? Also, the Haynes tels you to drain the gearbox but looking at the filler plug and switch placing I think with the car on axle stands at the front you could skip that?

 

[jayo5]

When you change the switch check the connectors on the wire as the wires can nearly break this giving a connection some times had a same problem on my xr3i fuel pump car ran then just stop go back to car later would start no problem the wire was a bit broken and with the car moving just lose the connection did take me a day to find the problem or it mite be a bad earth

 

[Renegade_8]

The earth is on the tail light unit and shared with stop tail and indicators. They are all fine so it's not that. I did plug and unplug the switch connector a couple of times after spraying it with WD40, it looked clean and dry in there though.
I had a look round a few on line sites and Motor Factors here, looks like the new one has to come from Thames Fiat, prolly cost = the trade value of the car

 

[Renegade_8]

Just swapped out the switch, it did have to come from Fiat, and at £20-30 I was not far wrong as I think the trade would offer about £100 for my car (how can they keep a straight face charging that much?)I checked out the old one and the new one with a multimeter they both seem to work much the same but the old one did feel a bit "tired". Hopefully thats fixed it. This is an easy job to do, I just parked the car facing up my drive waited for the gearbox oil to drain to the back, wriggled underneath and swapped em with the car on its wheels on the ground.