Reverse & Dome Light Issue / Fob Not Locking

Wreckless Hype

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2000 EX Coupe

I got home tonight and parked the car, lights off, walked away and clicked the fob to lock the car. It locked fine, clicked it again, beeped. Noticed the reverse lights were lit (almost looked like reflected light), but look and yea, they're on. I opened the trunk so i could see the lights from the drivers door, popped the shifter to reverse and turned the key on. The reverse lights came on full power, popped back to neutral, lights went off. "Oh cool, just stuck on..." Nope. Closed the door and the reverse lights came back on very dim...

Recently I had redone the exterior lights in SuperBrightLED 18 SMD LEDs. I hated them and decided to RMA them, so today seemed like the perfect time to pull them. Pulled every LED out of the car and went back to halogen until I can source better quality LEDs.

WHILE I was swapping the lights in the trunk, I noticed my dome light was flickering. I thought it was related to a wire I was messing with for the reverse lights so I moved the wire and couldn't get a rhythm going. All the bulbs halogen outside, inside light still just doing what it wants. It flickers at different speeds, stays on, shuts off, whatever it wants to do. The interior festoons are Samsun 6 LED bulbs by DDM tuning (they came with my HID kit). I pulled the festoons and went back to halogen here also. Still the dome light does whatever it wants.

With the dome light as LED OR HALOGEN, on switch, it's on, off switch stays off. Only in the middle for the door open and unlock operation is when it goes nuts.
Also, the reverse lights seem fine at this point.
*Also also. this time with the dome light going crazy, the lock button on my fob really does nothing. The light on the fob says I hit a button, but the car doesn't respond. It will respond to the unlock command and the panic command.

So what did I break? I'm incredibly confused...

Edit, I put the dome light to the middle position and opened the door, it stays off now it seems. I tried wiggling the harness of wires going from the door to the chassis and it didn't do anything. Locking the doors from the switch inside DOES work.
 
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RonJ

Banned
Sounds like your keyless control unit located behind the driver side kick panel is malfunctioning.

There are input tests that can be done with a multimeter.
 


Wreckless Hype

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Dome switch in middle position, leaving the house, it wouldn't come on when the door was open. When the door was closed, it was on, hitting the brake pedal, it would shut off. Let off And it would come back on.
 
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RonJ

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Check the ground wire in the trunk. Do the brake lights and taillights work?
 


Wreckless Hype

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Yes, those I checked. They also flash when unlocking the car by fob and the panic is set off.
 

Wreckless Hype

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How about with the brake pedal and light switch?
Yes, this also works. Parking lights on, brake pedal - brake lights come on and then dim properly back to parking lights.

Very strange. I keep testing the dome light inside with the doors closed and it on the middle position. It's totally random whether it decides to come on or not. The brake pedal seems to affect it though, sometimes turning it off completely while depressed, other times it makes it flicker.

I've been leaving the dome light in the off position so it doesn't just flash or go crazy while I'm away. Also, the reverse light thing seems to have been resolved by the looks of it. I haven't noticed them on when the car is not in reverse.

Locking on the key fob does not work at all, unlocking works totally fine, 100% of the time tested, same with panic, same with the lock switch on the drivers door.

THIS kinda seemed like my issue, but I don't remember the weird sound (likely not related). I did have the flickering dome light and the fob kind of not working. I'll grab a battery just to change that in the fob and rule it out. (Also just realized that's you again)

None of the other lights seem to be acting up. The headlights, fog lights, turn signals, brake lights, parking lights, dash lights, cluster lights, radio, all seem to be working like they always have. The map lights and dome light, when the 3 of them were both LEDs, would blow the #43 fuse under the hood. In turn, I left the map lights OFF and just used the dome light in it's normal position and it was fine for a couple weeks, up until tonight. It wasn't even an issue until I started removing the LEDs in the rear (starting with the reverse lights, which were the ORIGINAL, only apparent issue at that time)

If I was going to replace the door lock control unit, I'd be looking at part number 38380-S04-A020-M1 (based on some quick research) and managed to find THIS on HPU

I'm putting a new battery in the fob when I get home tonight, though I'm not really hopeful, I know low battery issues can be very strange.
 
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RonJ

Banned
You should replace the FOB battery, but I doubt it will solve all problems.
------------------------------------------------------------
Does this summarize the current problems:

Dome light does not function properly.

Keyless remote won't lock doors
.
------------------------------------------------------------
Also, do the map lights currently work? Does fuse 43 still blow?

Are any LEDs still installed in your car? If so, where?

You replaced LEDs in your car. Did you replace them with standard bulbs recommended for your car?

And don't start randomly replacing parts. Instead, do some electrical troubleshooting. Do you have a multimeter?

Dome switch in middle position, leaving the house, it wouldn't come on when the door was open. When the door was closed, it was on, hitting the brake pedal, it would shut off. Let off And it would come back on.
Which door? Driver, passenger, or either?
 
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Wreckless Hype

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Which door? Driver, passenger, or either?
Both. Was messing with it when the GF and her sister were piling in, 1st just my door (I was having her check the brake lights / parking lights thing). Still messing with it when they were getting in (both doors open), and closed my door (only the passenger door open) and nothing seemed to change it as far as the doors being open.

If it is infact something related to the door lock control unit, would getting something after market possibly resolve the issue? Only reason I ask was I have been considering a remote start / security option for the car and they mostly all do the door lock thing, so I didn't know if they remove / disconnect the OEM module to install the aftermarket.

Obviously I'd really like to get it back to 100% functionality, rather than bandaid or cover up any issues. I do IT for a living, I know what kind of mess that makes :roll:

You should replace the FOB battery, but I doubt it will solve all problems.
------------------------------------------------------------
Does this summarize the current problems:

Dome light does not function properly.

Keyless remote won't lock doors
.
------------------------------------------------------------
Also, do the map lights currently work? Does fuse 43 still blow?

Are any LEDs still installed in your car? If so, where?

You replaced LEDs in your car. Did you replace them with standard bulbs recommended for your car?

And don't start randomly replacing parts. Instead, do some electrical troubleshooting. Do you have a multimeter?
s***, I missed half of this :(

summary is correct. I actually did not check the map lights come to think of it, so I don't know on the fuse either. I will check shortly.

No LEDs. I put all the original halogens back in the car, that were installed when I bought it and everything was 100%. The car DOES still have HIDs installed (Fogs and HL), but to my knowledge, they have not been having any sort of issues, or affecting the electronics in any way when they are switched on, off, no flashing, etc. I checked several places and did a lot of cross referencing and asked support on voltages and wattage before buying what I did. I seemed to have the green light, I also thought the company I bought from made quality stuff, but I was wrong on that aspect :(

I have replaced no electrical parts but I'm looking at what this may cost financially as a worst case, and to make sure parts are obtainable.

Multimeter I got!
 
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RonJ

Banned
Fuse 43 is not blown if the dome lights work. But I'd still check whether fuse 43 blows with both the map and dome lights on. That should not happen.

When you are done checking this^, are you willing/interested in doing some electrical troubleshooting?
 

Wreckless Hype

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Fuse 43 is not blown if the dome lights work. But I'd still check whether fuse 43 blows with both the map and dome lights on. That should not happen.

When you are done checking this^, are you willing/interested in doing some electrical troubleshooting?
I know that 43 is not currently blown, I've managed to find out it's connected to the dome / map / trunk lights as well as the seat belt chime and the key left in the ignition chime (There may be more, but that's what I notice stops working when that fuse pops.

I will check it here in a few minutes on my lunch break. Always willing to do what needs to be done to get it working right. I appreciate your help, clearly I don't have enough knowledge in this stuff at the moment...

As I walked by the car from my office to our warehouse, I was just hitting the lock button on the fob (I do this when I'm range, in hopes that it will just magically start working) - and it did... I didn't see anything walking by hitting it once, but press 2 and 3 tell me it locked, and then beep, beep.

Unlocked the car with the fob, then relocked it, beep, beep. Wtf...

Then realized in all of this testing that I left the map lights OUT (Which I wouldn't think would hurt anything if they were left off), so I popped them back in, flicked them on, no issue.

Put the dome light in middle position and did the following:
Doors closed, maps on, no issue
^ Brake pedal made no difference here, no flickering on the maps, dome remained off as it should
Driver's door open, maps on, dome on.
^ Brake pedal made no difference here.
Map lights off, got out of the car and saw the dome light still on (as it does while it fades off) and quickly LOCKED the car with the fob, dome light quickly went out, car locked and beeped when pressed additional times.

I don't know what the hell happened, or what changed, but now I cannot replicate this issue... I'm going to have to recheck all of this when I get off work, before and after I drive home.

Now the summary is like this:
s*** works

I'm not totally convinced this just fixed itself, unless it was something with the LEDs messing up the electrical, and it somehow was worked out upon removing them (riiiight)

So as of right now, let's go with:
#43 does not blow when the map and dome lights are on, as they previously had with the LEDs.
Fob lock function is working intermittent currently, will change the battery to check for consistency.
 
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Wreckless Hype

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Can't get it to act up again.

I put the LEDs that I had back inside the dome and mp light sockets and they blow the 43 fuse. With just the dome light on, they're fine so something is up with the LEDs in the map light location. I dropped one of the halogen map lights and can't find it so I can't check the halogen map lights + LED dome, but that's a different issue I think.

Sourcing different LEDs and will try some different troubleshooting. If it's an LED thing, I'll have to figure something out. The light output is incredible, but if they are all going to cause issues, I'll see if there's a solution available, or suck it up and find some bright halogens...

Issue with the dome coming on and shutting off by itself / flickering is no longer an issue at this point
Fob not locking the car is also no longer an issue at this point. Changed the battery anyway, just got slightly better range (battery low I guess)

Will bump this thread with new info if something changes.
 

Wreckless Hype

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Nothing to be done unless problem recurs.
Problem (Reverse lights only, so far) recurred. *sigh*

This morning walking out to my car, I noticed my reverse lights were on, but very dim.
Opened the driver's door, they went off.
Close the door, they came on.
Opened passenger side door, they went off.
Close the door, back on.
Reverse lights work just fine.

The dome light still seems to work fine.
The fob seems to lock / unlock just fine.

Currently the car is sitting, parked, with the shifter in Reverse position (manual) and the reverse lights are off.
 

RonJ

Banned
If you unplug the back-up light switch on the transmission, does opening and closing the door no longer activate the back-up lights?
 

Wreckless Hype

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If you unplug the back-up light switch on the transmission, does opening and closing the door no longer activate the back-up lights?
I didn't get to check this last night while I was still having the issue. This morning I was going to try to pop it off quick before work, and they were off.

I left the car in neutral, as I always do out of habit and the lights were off. I thought maybe I left it in reverse, but I did not. The only other thing that was different than any other overnight was I turned my fog light switch off, where as I normally just turn the lights off and leave the switch engaged. I pushed the fog light switch in and it made no difference. Checking all the things that made a difference yesterday, made no difference today. So again, lights are off.

This is making troubleshooting rather difficult. If see them on again, I'll quick pull the reverse light switch on the tranny to check. What a pain.

Thanks for your ongoing help, RonJ
 


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