Bad earth on back lights

Aug 29, 2003 4 Replies
T

Hi,



I have a 1993 UK Golf, and when I indicate the fog light indicator on the dash board blinks too. When I have the lights on and indicate, the indicators on the back flash, and so do the rear tail lights. This says to me that I had a bad earth somewhere. On my on Ford, I took apart the back light cluster and found some corrosion which I cleaned off and it all worked again, however on this car I can find no corrosion.



I can't even find the earth point, anyone have any ideas as to what I should be looking for. All the metal/wires I can see around the rear light clusters are in good shape.



Tat.


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M

Not sure about UK-market A3 Golfs but on my A2 US-market one all of the bulbs are grounded in the luggage compartment to the body. Pull back some carpeting and see if you see anything. Alternately, there's probably a brown ground wire in the harness...follow that wire and see where it goes.

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S

Can you really have an "earth" in a car? The ground just goes to the negative of the battery, not an earthing rod like in a house.

...Sean.

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S

of the battery, not an earthing rod like in a house.<

"Earth" in British English = "ground" in American English.

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T

Erm, grammar aside. The fault was found on the plug that went into the nearside rear light cluster. There was a tiny bit of corrosion I missed sctually INSIDE the connector. A needle file sorted it out.

nearside = driver side for you americans. For us UK drivers, nearside = side nearest to the pavement.

pavement= sidewalk to you americans.

Tat.

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