I walked outside a couple of weeks ago to discover that the headlights on my '94 Miata were in the "up" position. I'd assumed that a car prowler had hopped in (we keep it unlocked and don't keep anything inside), but there was no evidence of anyone visiting. The light switch was off, and the button on the dash was also in the usual position. I grabbed a key, put it in the ignition, and turned the ignition on, then off. When I turned the key off, the lights popped down, and then popped right back up again. I repeated this several times, and the lights went down, then back up again.
I forgot about the problem for a while (it's our 3rd car and doesn't get driven much unless the weather is nice), but now I'm turning my attention to the problem again. Now, the symptoms are a little different. The lights won't go down at all no matter what I do. They're always up regardless of key position or the position of the switches.
This new behavior led me to suspect a fuse. I checked the fuses and all look OK -- the one labeled "retractors" (30A) under the hood, as well as all other fuses under the hood and under the dash.
When I try to manually retract the headlights by twisting the knobs attached to the motors, I can only give the knobs a couple of turns until they "kick" back at me and pop the headlight up. Same behavior on both sides. If I pull the retractor fuse and manually wind the lights down, they pop back up as soon as the fuse is re-inserted.
Is there a relay for the circuit? My first guess is that the relay is stuck, but I can't find a relay. 2nd guess is that one of the switches has failed or there's a gremlin in the wiring, but the fact that the behavior changed in the past several weeks makes this seem unlikely. Suggestions?
Thank you in advance, Shane