One light always on

Look at the wiring inside the car, it's possible one of the wires has chafed and is shorting to ground.

Something is screwed up in the way the taillight is wired, or maybe you have the wrong bulb holder. What you're going to have to do is compare your taillight circuit boards, and make sure that the bad one is an exact mirror image of the good one, right down to bulb holders and which wires connect where. Removing the taillights from the car may be the best way to accomplish this.

I vote for the holder. Wiring shorts should blow the fuse regardless of whether the bulb is in or not, unless I'm missing something.

Mike

I thought about that too, but I used the left brake light holder for the right and it still does the same thing. I can't tell any difference at all between the holders, but I could be wrong.

Are you sure you have the right bulbs? For example, dual filament bulbs instead of single filament?

Mike

Yes...I even bought 2 new bulbs to make sure nothing was wrong with the bulbs.

Be sure that isn't like still getting a wrong number when using redial... they should be dual filament (two contact patches on the end instead of one.)

Did this just start one day, or was it after changing something?

Mike

Going up a couple of posts... The bulb holder for the brake/tail should be noticeably different from left to right, black on the left and white on the right. (All other holders should be black, and identical from left to right, and this info only applies to sedans, wagons use black holders all around.)

Hmmm....I actually have all black holders. It has been working for many years with those holders though.

Car is actually my girlfriends, so I don't always have it to work on or check things out.

Problem just started to happen, I didn't change anyth> Michael Pardee wrote:

instead of

directly.

Actually, all the bulb holders are black. The problem just started happening. It is actually my girlfriend's car, so I don't have it to work on all the time. I think it has got to be a short somewhere though. I need to try and find a manual for it to see some wiring diagrams. Does anyone know if the wiring to the right taillight is feeding from the left taillight...or how it is run?

Mike F wrote:

instead of

directly.

With the wrong holder (assuming a 3 contact holder for a double filament bulb), all that happens is the taillight comes on during braking and vice versa. Both taillight and brake lights are fed separately from the bulb failure relay, which is under the dash, so they have their own wires. (Left and right taillights are even on different fuses.) There's a third "tail light" wire that bypasses the bulb failure relay used for the license lights.

license light - white left tail - red right tail - brown left brake - yellow-gray right brake - yellow

My guess is the bulb holder is either defective (2 of the metal conductive strips are touching) or the part of the metal contact strip that touches the circuit board is bridging 2 circuit board traces.