Heavy

The car is a 1996 LS400

The other day while i was backing out of a friends driveway he noticed that my license plate lights were out. Well one thing lead to another and I figure out that the front parking lights and the license plate lights are not working, yet the tailights are fine when you turn them on the parking setting. I already checked the fuse (#18 on the kick-panel, 10amp fuse) it wasn't blown but I replaced it anyways just because. I would figure there to be a warning light on for the malfunctioning lights but its not. Anybody have any ideas as to what possibly happened? short in the wiring? bad light stalk? is there a different fuse/relay? thanks for the help/input

* I've already used the "search" feature and looked around on some other sites

billydpowe

iTrader: (1)

have you checked the bulbs? are they blown? #2825 bulb.

Heavy

i was thinking that but 6 bulbs would be out at one time? i find that pretty unlikely? 4 parking lights and the 2 plate lights

PureDrifter

iTrader: (10)

check the fuses inside and outside the car, but it's probably the bulbs. replace the bulbs if all the fuses are clear.

billydpowe

iTrader: (1)

when I turn my 96 pk lites on, on the rear, I have 6 tail lites plus a LPL burning, on the front 2 amber lamps and 2 clear outboard lights.... what 6 were you talking about??

Yamae

Judging from the blown bulbs that are mostly small wattage, I worry about a surge peak voltage given to them and others. Have you ever removed the battery terminal when the engine was running to check the capability of the alternator or something?

To do that sometimes causes a surge voltage generated by other inductive load. It is a kind of a fly back energy. Sometimes it exceeds 20V and kills some week parts. I used to do this type of experiment when I designed some products to use for automobiles. It was also the requirement from automobile companies. This is the reason why electrolytic capacitors type 25V are used for 12V DC lines of equipments for automobiles.

If you have never tried to remove the battery terminal before, there would be some other reasons such as bulbs might be just old enough, the alternator might be generating a surge or the voltage itself might be too high. I recommend you to observe the waveform of the 12V line. My family's Honda car had this much of surge voltage 17.2V pictured at my blog below.
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/mae_yas/993740.html

In my case, the surge was generated by the ignition coil and the electrolytic capacitor in the ECU could not absorb it due to the increased ESR ( Electric Series Resistance) and less capacitance. The surge was so narrow that the problem was not killing bulbs but it caused malfunction of the ECU.
Without the observation by a oscilloscope, I couldn't find and fix the problem.

Heavy

well you guys were right, i replaced all of the bulbs and everything works. I just found it odd that all of the lights would be out at one time with no notifcation. Did find out though somebody snapped the mounts for the parking lights, guess ill have to order new ones at some point.

2 Front parking lights
2 Front turn signals/parking lights
2 Rear license plate lights

Heavy

I myself have never done that, the only time i've ever detached the battery was when i was replacing the serp belt and a few other things. I do not know what the previous owner did.