Wierdest Problem with Head Light and Fogs

[1994viper]

Hello all. I have the most puzzling issue with my cars lights on my 2005 vert. I have fog lights running as day time running lights. Its required in Canada. The story goes: As im driving on a highway at night, my drivers side deadlight and both fog lights shut off. On the instrument panel I get a solid, not flashing "left turn" arrow indicator. I pull over and inspect... If I turn the light switch off, both of my fogs are working as designed to run as day light running lights. If the light switch is in on position including fog lights on position and I move the indicator leaver to show left turn signal (that's the side on which the headlight doesn't seem to work now) my foglights start flashing as strobe lights, and the seemed to be dead left headlamp weakly strobes too. If I have the switch on wth fogs on and four way signal is on, the four way flashing, does NOT trigger the fogs to go strobe (they are just off) rather the non working headlight dimly flashes.
I hope I made sense.
This is the craziest thing I have ever seen. Can someone please tell me what it might be caused by, or where to start to look for a solution.. All fuses were checked

Thank you all
Mark

 

[TheOldViperMan]

May be time to "reboot".
I would start by disconnecting the battery for maybe 15 minutes. Reconnect and cross fingers.
BillyC

 

[TowDawg]

If the "reboot" doesn't work, follow the wires coming off drivers side turn signal, headlight and foglight. It sounds like you've got some wires that somehow (melted/torn cover, etc) are touching together and causing a short.

 

[1994viper]

Wow. I think I might be in for a fun journey here. Didn't do anything to the car, started it in the morning, all works fine. Im hoping it will be the last of it, but somehow im doubting it thank you guys for your input

 

[impalassed]

I've seen a bad or loose ground wire cause lots of strange issues....

 

[TowDawg]

If it's not doing it now, I would definitely lean towards the loose ground issue that impalassed brought up. I've had loose grounds drive me crazy before. Just the vibration from higher RPM's, road imperfections, wind, etc can cause a loose ground to rear its' head.
I had an intermittent misfire on my race car that was causing the engine to feel like I was hitting the rev limiter, but I knew I was nowhere near it. However, since the Traqdash system is all electronic, I thought maybe it was the tach calibration. We have two identical race cars, so we started pulling parts off the other one to try on mine. Calibration settings on the Traqmate system? Nope. Plug wires? Nope. Plugs? Nope. Ignition coils? Nope. Battery cables? Nope. Battery? STILL NO!
I spent over two hours ripping stuff off one car and putting it on the other and drove myself insane. I went to check to alternator and noticed a bolt about to fall out of the engine block. Come to find out, the ground wire for the main harness of the car was on that bolt. I tightened it up and everything was back to 100%. It was the vibration from the engine above a certain RPM causing the ground wire ring to bounce around on the bolt and cause the misfire.
Lesson? Look at the wires and for the obvious things first. It may stick out like a sore thumb when you see it.

 

[labtec]

Sounds a little like my 08 Dodge Nitro problems which I bought used and soon afterward found out why it was traded in., check this link @ http://s104.photobucket.com/user/minitrucker007/media/Nitrocrazy.flv.html . In the good old days grounds would cause all kinds of issues but now there's a new player in town to add to your troubleshooting fun. I don't know if our 04-06 Vipers have a TIPM (CANBus) system like the Nitro but if it does you should check it out. The immediate fix was to stop the vehicle, pop the hood, get out, leave door open, lift hood and smack the TIPM box (located behind battery shown in video) with the palm of your hand.

For those of you who would like a good laugh at my expense:
The failure of the TIPM box was very intermitting and the video hardly does it justice. This CANBus TIPM module controls everything including the engine. While driving down the road the Nitro would stop the engine, restart while the wipers moved like in the video. Also the washer fluid would jet onto the windshield and of course the wipers were moving erratically so things got interesting at 60mph. All the while the dash lights, AC/Heat, headlights and every other device in the vehicle were going crazy. The best part of all was the security feature....remember I mentioned leaving the door open. Coming back from racing bikes it decided to have a moment and screw up, so I stopped on side of highway, popped the hood, got out, left door open and.....the wind blew the door shut The security system immediately locked all the doors. I lifted the hood and gave the TIPM module a smack to stop the insanity. So here I am on the side of highway with my phone, wallet, etc. on the other side of the door. Fortunately I was at a light by quick store and they let me borrow phone to call wifey, who drove 45 minutes to bring spare key. Talked with Dodge many times about this and as you can guess they had never heard of the problem. I sent them the forum links etc which were full of complaints and multiple videos but they were unresponsive even though it is a safety of life issue. Needless to say I just bought the TIPM for 275 and replaced it myself, problem solved. Funny thing is the revision number of the replacement box was many numbers past the original, guess they had a problem with the original after all.