Dome and Foot lights wont turn off.

XJBANKER · Sep 30, 2008

Here is the deal.

The dome and foot lights will not shut off. I have a 2000 XJ.
I have checked the obvious things first. The headlight switch is not accidentally on and the rear light button is not on. I took the rear light off and put it in another Jeep to make sure that the switch was working. I checked the connections on the rear hatch and everything looks good. I also unplugged the connecter inside the rear panel and that cuts power to the rear dome light, but the other lights are still on. So the problem has to be from the rear doors up unless I am missing something. Next on the list of things that I checked was I had someone help me by manually pushing in the door pins all at the same time. Still the lights are on. However when I do this they barely dim no matter which switch is pushed in.

So what I am thinking is that one of the door pins is not working or that the headlight switch is not shutting the lights off. Anyone have any ideas of how to check this problem? I am thinking that I should take out each door pin one by one and unplug them to see if one of the pins is messed up. Or should I start with the headlight switch first? Any opinions?

hubs97xj · Sep 30, 2008

I would check the switches first, and if that didn't correct it, I'd start checking for a short.

If you've got a dmm, you can pull the switches and check them for function pretty easily.

XJBANKER · Sep 30, 2008

hubs97xj said:
I would check the switches first, and if that didn't correct it, I'd start checking for a short.

If you've got a dmm, you can pull the switches and check them for function pretty easily.

I think that is where I am going to start.

Anyone know which fuse will shut them off in the process?

XJBANKER · Sep 30, 2008

all of the door pins are unplugged and still the lights are on. next thing to check is the headlight switch then I guess I will start tracing wires.

XJBANKER · Sep 30, 2008

I tore my dash apart on my lunch break. Took off the headlight switch and the lights are still on. It has to be a short somewhere.

2000XJSPORT · Oct 1, 2008

Check rear tailgate latch. If you slam the door down to much it will break the switch inside that turns off the lights in the XJ. Most likely the tailgate latch.

Blaine B. · Oct 1, 2008

The switch on the rear tailgate area dome light doesn't turn the lights on, it only turns them off if you have the hatch open for an extended period of time and don't want to drain your battery.

So if the switch in the hatch is broken and keeping your interior lights on and you can't turn them off with the switch on the rear dome light, the switch on the dome light is most likely broken. That particular switch was prone to melting due to being not up to the task of having that much current flow through it. I know I had to replace that switch in my 95 and have heard countless others having the same issue with that switch melting.

XJBANKER · Oct 1, 2008

Blaine B. said:
The switch on the rear tailgate area dome light doesn't turn the lights on, it only turns them off if you have the hatch open for an extended period of time and don't want to drain your battery.

So if the switch in the hatch is broken and keeping your interior lights on and you can't turn them off with the switch on the rear dome light, the switch on the dome light is most likely broken. That particular switch was prone to melting due to being not up to the task of having that much current flow through it. I know I had to replace that switch in my 95 and have heard countless others having the same issue with that switch melting.

That was my first guess, but I took that light out and put it in another jeep to see if the switch works and it does. The only thing I can think of is that it has to have a loose wire that is grounding somewhere.

Dome and Foot lights wont turn off.

XJBANKER

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hubs97xj

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XJBANKER

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2000XJSPORT

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Blaine B.

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