Community Forums

ChrisMat · 05-19-2019, 04:31 PM

Newbie here. Thx for letting me participate but now I’m gonna challenge y’all.
My 2003 AE 40w intermittently (grrrr) loses headlights. We drive with them on whenever it’s driven, i.e. all day, not just at night. Subsequently, don’t know if they’re blinking off and on during daylight hours but they definitely go off at night. Do you suppose they overheat, go off, cool down and turn back on? It has happened with the high intensity bulbs in it. Voltage problem?
The only helpful (?) I can offer is that when I push the intermittent wiper button on the smart wheel, they go back on for a while. I do not know if any other lights go off though I can tell you that the fog lights do not as they ”become” my temp headlights (grrrr).
I have had it at three different repair folks, most recently NIRVC in Lawrenceville GA. I have talked to Spartan who suggested corrosion in the stepwell where their controller is located and which interfaces with the smart wheel controller. “Supposedly” NIRVC worked with them on that.
I have only had her for 2 1/2 years, happened going from Winslow AZ to Flag that first winter, didn’t drive after dark until this past March and it’s still happening.
Ok, give me your best shot!

Jake21 · 05-19-2019, 05:17 PM

Since you mentioned the smart wheel, have you turned the lights on and tested whether the headlight flash button works? Perhaps you have a bad switch there.

ChrisMat · 05-19-2019, 06:33 PM

No Jake, have not tried that. Will when it comes back from NIRVC.

ChrisMat · 05-21-2019, 03:31 AM

NIRVC service mgr call Monday to report that the socket wasn’t seated in the housing properly and would go out! They are upgrading the socket. This may have been the problem as someone had changed to hid bulbs at some point!. Yay! Fix my problem? Time will tell.

He also said that the overhead lights are on same circuit and sometimes water can into those lights and short circuit. They have caulked around all those lights jic!

Jake21 · 05-21-2019, 08:12 AM

Cool. Thanks for the follow up

ChrisMat · 09-23-2019, 10:18 PM

Finally had an opportunity to drive at night again and the intermittent light problem is still here.

I have a sm209 rev d control module for the smartwheel.

This last time i heard what I would describe as a crackling noise in the dash area, not near the pull out headlight switch when the lights started going off.
I also don’t feel the noise was in the steering column.

Any thoughts?