Rear Taillights Have gone out, HELP????

[HalBaby60]

Originally Posted by Ullearn

So I searched and searched, but couldn't find a thread on this - please help.

Tonight I was alerted by another motorist that my rear taillights were not working, to my surprise. I have done a bit of troubleshooting, but unfortunately nothing has worked. Both left and right taillight are not working.

Here is what I tried:
- Checked Fuse #27 / 7.5amp - Back Light, also swapped with another 7.5amp, both good.
- Looked for any other fuses related to rear light, taillight, back light - none found; is there relays for this?
- Disassembled the rear light to check the bulb - looks good, have none to swap with at this time, will pick some up tomorrow.

Things to note, both the brake light and turn signal light do work. The information on the rear taillight is - Toshiba 921 12V W16W A12V18W

I thought back to the most recent thing I changed about the car and the only thing I did was install a stereo. So I took back out the stereo to check to see if that was the culprit (my only real suspension was the blue power antenna wire that is supposed to boost the am play back & thinking the orange dimmer wires that weren't hooked up - I thought this because I thought the a/c panel has backlights as well, do they?), unfortunately this was not the culprit.

Please help, my only hope left before electrical is that both lights quincidently went out at the same time, I doubt it, but hope.

-Dustin

Key Search Words: Rear , Tail , Light , Rearlight , Taillight

If you can afford it, your best investment is the Honda Service manual for your year of car. It can save you hundreds if not thousands on repairs. It is for sale at HelmInc.com for about $70.00. It makes it easy to replace bulbs, fuses, whatever. If not mechanically inclined, maybe a friend can help you...

[Kevin Dougherty]

Originally Posted by Willie Williford

The first thing that should "always" be done when checking for any electrical malfunction is to check "the fuses".


A long time ago, Govt. regulations requested a "safety factor" to all automobile manufactures in that the electrical circuits were designed in all vehicles so that the "dash lights" would go out when the tail lights were lost.

Lesson learned?

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I never knew this about the dash lights. My white dash lights went out about two days ago, but the instrument leds stayed on.
I didn't realize the tail lights (and the parking lights) were out until I used the key-less entry from behind the car. Nice feature.
Fuse # 15 was blown, a 10 amp mini spade type.
Autozone (love those guys) replaced it for the cost of a five pack ( ~ $4.00) of fuses. Just the thing for an old fat guy.
Fuse #15 is on the under dash fuse box, bottom rear, second slot (near the door). The #14 fuse slot next to it was empty. First blown fuse I've had with the car in 11+ years.

[GuySmily]

For people installing aftermarket stereos, you have to be very careful with those two dimmer/illumination wires (orange/orange-white on aftermarket harnesses).

Sounds like the OP got lucky and blew a fuse. Older Civics didn't have a fuse and would instead fry all kinds of things in the dash if you picked the wrong one.

Double check both wires coming from the body harness. One should give +12v when the parking lights are on (solid orange on my Metra 70-1721 harness). That's usually what you connect to the radio (orange with white stripe on my Kenwood).

The orange w/white stripe "Dimmer" wire on the car harness normally does not connect to anything - especially not the orange-white wire on the radio. This wire's voltage should vary when you press the +/- dimmer buttons on the cluster.

Any wires that you don't use should either be taped off or de-pinned (removed from the harness) to prevent shorts. I concur with the OP's suspicion that a short could have caused his issues.

[TopFuelTim]

Originally Posted by frisbied

bad relay. fuse box under the dash, 3 relays, top one bad. mitsuba rc-5001 12v no 073, had to pull it with some needle-nose pliers

That's it! Thank you. Friend's car had that problem. I had been through all the fuses, tried a different multi-switch and no fix. Found your note on the relay, problem solved.

Tim