I have been experiencing some strange behaviour with my left turn signal. Sometimes it works normally, and sometimes it flashes fast like a bulb is burnt, and the rear does not signal. The running lights still work fine, but when the signal is out, so is my brake light on the left side.

Normally, this would indicate to me that the bulb is burnt out, but the fact that the problem comes and goes tells me that it is not the bulb. So I pulled the left tail bulb out (tried another one as well, same problem), and checked the wires to see if they were shorting or something. The wires all look fine, and wiggling the wires around doesn't make a difference on whether it works or not, so I don't think it is a short either. At least, not at the bulb socket anyway.

I put a circuit tester to the leads on the socket to see if it is getting a signal, which seems to work fine. I pulled the right tail as well to test the leads to see if they were the same, and suddenly my right turn signal started flashing fast. At this point, I'd pretty much broken both signals, so I hit the four-ways to see what it would do. The four-way flashers worked perfectly, with all four bulbs flashing normally. When I turned the four-ways off and then tried my signals again, they all worked fine and have worked perfectly for several days now.

Anyone else every experienced this, or know what the cause is?

i'm betting the turn signal relay needs replacement

I had this same exact problem on the rear passenger side of my car. I ended up replacing the socket that you actually put the bulb in. Sometimes the bulb was making contact, sometimes it wasn't. After I replaced that socket, I haven't had any problems. Think I paid 5 bucks at the boneyard for it.


Aaron


97 Cavalier Z24 @ 85k
00 Cavalier Base Coupe @ 152k...rollin on 14's!
97 Grand Cherokee 5.2L@ 260k