dome light problem

one day the dome light turned on out of the blue in my 1997 cherokee and now will not turn off. what could it be?

There is a three way switch in the back that can be knocked into the on position by your head. It's built into the rear light in the cargo area. The only other thing that could do it would be a bad switch in either front door or the hatchback.

yea i bought the rig with an aftermarket system in it and the switch does not work so im thinking faulty wiring.

Go through all your doors one at a time and see if manually pushing the door switch will turn the light off. If so, you can either reposition or replace the switch, or duct-tape a coin onto the door striker area, shutting off the light.

If it's the rear hatch, I ended up wiring a manual replacement switch into my cargo area light. I can turn it "off" and it will still work with the front doors but stay off it I open the rear hatch.

Jim www.yuccaman.com

xjman4 said:

yea i bought the rig with an aftermarket system in it and the switch does not work so im thinking faulty wiring.

Click to expand...

Aftermarket interior lighting, didn't even know anybody made them unless it has a disco ball in there...

My dome light comes on when the rear doors are opened but not the front. However, If I leave my headlights on, the buzzer will come on with the front doors. Does that 3 way switch maybe have something to do with it?

Where is the seat belt buzzer located by the way? I want to smash it..

That switch in the rear cargo area dome light is not for turning the interior lights on. It is for turning them off if you are going to have the hatch open for a prolonged amount of time (to save your battery)

However that switch always fails and burns up. The switch isn't made to handle the load. If you'll notice it is the same switch used for the map lights, definitely two different types of loads for the same type of switch.

Replace the switch with a different style so you can turn your interior lights off. Most likely the cause is something wrong with the light switch in your hatch locking mechanism, although a temporary solution would be to replace the switch in the rear dome light so you could at least turn the lights off.

Or pull the interior lights fuse, although at least on my 95, that fuse is shared by the radio as well.

Twist the headlight nob and see if the dome light goes off. Hey, it could happen...