I bought a fog light kit for my 97 GLE from Courtesy and installed it. Only the passenger side light works. I called Courtesy thinking it was a bad bulb and they told me to swap them around. I did and only the passenger side worked again. That means there is a problem with the wiring. Any suggestions on what could be wrong? I am taking the car to the dealer a week from tomorrow and will try and get it fixed but I would like to do it myself if I could.

 

do you have a multi-tester/dmm/digital multier meter?

you'll need to be able to trace the wires and check to see where the voltage loss is...

-V

 

I have one of those but i am not really an expert in using it. I am sure I could figure it out though. Where would you suggest testing the wires? I tried following them last night and they just go into this big wire harness with 100 wires in it.

 

I'd turn on the fog lights and check the test the wires going into the side that doesn't work. See if it registers voltage. If it does, then it's someone on the fog light assembly end. If it doesn't, I'd test to see if I'm getting at least positive from to the light. Take the positive lead on the DMM and touch the contact in the fog end of the harness that's supposed to be positive while holding the negative cable from the DMM to any known good ground point on the car (i.e. almost any non-painted metal surface on the car). If the needle jumps/the DMM shows 12v, then it's a bad ground. Test the ground side by putting the multimeter into resistance/ohm mode and check to see if the connector is getting connectivity to any ground of the vehicle. If no, then trace the ground wire to see where it grounds to.

-V

 

Thanks, I will try that tonight and see what happens.

 

Making progress! I took off the fog light that worked and had to figure out a way to hook the DMM up. The connector has the wires put inside the connector and the fog light slides into it. I stuck two very small nails in there and felt the piece grip them. I then turned the lights on and tested them. I got a current. I repeated the same process for the other side but I didn't feel one of the nails grip. So instead of touching this nail I touched the frame and then the nail that did grip and I got a reading. That means the light isn't grounded properly. So now what do I need to do. I think putting a new connector piece on there on the end of the wire coming from the car will fix it but I dont know if I could do that. Would it be hard? I could always get the dealer to do it. Any more ideas on fixing the problem? Thanks for you help! Im getting closer.

 

First, I would want to check to see if it was the connector was bad or the other end that going into ground. Try putting th meter into resistance mode (the ohm setting) and then touch one side of the meter to the nail that you put in the ground side and the other to the body of the car somewhere. If you don't get ground, trace the wire. I am more inclined to think that it's a bad ground on the end grounding to the car body than the connector itself. If you want, you 'could' try to splice the wire somewhere up stream of the connector, and ground it to some other part of the body. However if you bought the kit new, I would recommend you try seeing if the ground is simply loose or bad.

-V

btw, glad you're making progress!

 

It was a problem with the ground. The gound slot in the connector was clogged with dirt so the piece of metal couldn't go in. I cleaned it out with some baking soda and water and now it works great. Thanks for your help! Now I dont have the go visit the dealer.

 

awesome... don't you feel good that you figured it out and were able to take care of it yourself and not

-V