in cold weather the dash lamps, steering wheel mounted control lamps, tail lamps, license plate lamp,and marker lamps will not light up until the car is warmed up! the brake lamps work and the flashers work. the car has the twilight sentinel and the headlights work normally. if the parking lamp switch is turned on manually none of the parking lights will operate until car thoroughly warmed up. please help i've already been stopped by the state troopers. i've checked the tail lamp bulb sockets and the 12 volts is not present. i thought it may have been a ground problem. could it be a bad park light switch, a broken power wire in the driver door jamb, a bad twilight sentinel switch??? WHEW, i don't have much more hair to pull out! thanks

 

I don't think that it would be a broken wire for the headlight switch in the door jam because the lamp controlmodule should turn them on too and that doesn't even need the headlight switch plugged in. It just need to be dark out.Sounds like maybe your not getting power to the park lamp fuse. Can you here any click from the dash when you turn on the park lamps on? If you can then the lamp control module is trying to turn on the lamps but maybe it isn't puting out any power to the lights. Check to see if your park lamps fuse is getting power with a test light. It should have power when the park lights are on but not when there off. The fuse should be located under the left side of the dash down by the drivers feet. In the instrument panel fuse block. If that fuse has no power when the lights are on then that means the lamp control module isn't powering the lights up or the wire between the module to fuse is broken or bad connection. I would guess that there is a relay inside the module that you can hear click inside the module that has bad contacts that starts working after the car warms up.

 

thank u for the info toadster! a couple more questions...do u know where the lamp module is located? is it the push botton switch on the drivers door? or is it located somewhere else? ur reply makes a lot of sense, thanks again. most of the trouble i have is knowing the system operation and without good elect schematics it's just a walk in the fog...if u know what i mean![img]smileys/smiley1.gif[/img] gangel

 

The lamp control module is under the dash somewhere. I'm not sure where because they moved it around from year to year. Turn the lights on and off and listen for a click from under the dash every time you turn the lights on and off. The click is coming from a relay inside the module. Just follow the click and you should be able to find the module. I would just use a test light at the park lamp fuse to see if it has power with the lights on or not while they are working and then when they aren't working see if there is power then. If there is no power to the fuse while the lights arent working then listen to see if the module is still clicking. That will tell you if the lamp module is getting the signal to turn on but it's not puting out power. It is posible that there is a bad connection or wire too.

 

i found the module with the help of my son. on the '96 it's located just above what would be the hump in a rear drive car. the only prob now is that it's working fine! can't fix it if it isn't broken. thanks a bunch for the help Toadster. will keep u informed as to what i found when it goes FLAKY again. GM forever, gary

 

That is one of the worst things about working on cars. Intermitent problems makes it hard to find a problem when there isn't one.

 

This probleme often came from the flasher switch in the steering. I personnaly make the experience. After changing the switch in the steering clomun everything was correct.

 

well, the park lights went wacko again! my son got a screwdriver and ,with the handle, gave the module a sharp whack. he said the lights all came on. i'm guessing that the 'rap' enabled the intermittantinternal component to operate as normal until the next time. since the prob is temp. sensitive i figure there must be a cracked solder joint in the module somewhere.


i'm going to try the "rap" method a couple more times and if it continues to correct the prob...guess i'll be buying a new lighting module which i'm sure is buick only! best regards gary[img]smileys/smiley1.gif[/img]