golf 98 turning signals

bad grounds at rear lights maybe?

Sometimes bulbs will fail in odd ways that cause what seem like wiring problems. A friend put the wrong bulbs in their car once. The base terminals were about 90 degrees off from what they should have been for the car. Wanna talk about WEIRD problems, and it took a good part of the day to find it. Never woulda thought about that until we pulled 'em all out and started looking at them to put them back in.

Mark '95 Jetta GLS

snipped-for-privacy@pleasehotmail.com says...

I thought that the turn signals were separate from the brake light circuit so that is why I mentioned the grounding of the rear lights. I could be wrong there! ;-) Now if the OP said that the front running lights came on when he stepped on the brakes, then I would definitely say bulbs and/or grounding.

I guess it could be bulbs!

Hmmm... You may be right on that one. Even so, voltage getting routed around where it's not expected can cause some strange things to happen. AND it's easy to look at, requires no special tools, schematics, etc.

On my friends car we'd started pulling bulbs to check the wiring and by accident noticed the problem went away. We didn't notice one of them was wrong until putting them back in. Did verify all the wiring was ok by tho'! Ah, to be young and stupid again. No Thanks! :D

I agree that checking ground is ALWAYS a good thing to do when checking this stuff out. Everyone thinks to check the power, but until they've been burnt a time or two most don't think to verify the ground.

Mark '95 Jetta GLS