I have a 2002 Ranger, and have a lighting problem. With the headlights turned on the parking/tail lights do not work. If just the parking lights are set, everything works fine. Dash, parking and tail lights all work fine. But as soon as I turn the Head lights on, all the other lights go out. I also noticed that when the door is open and the parking lights on there is an alarm. But when the head lights turned on the alarm stops. Since the lights work independently but not together I am assuming that this is not a fuse problem, but I checked them and could not find any bad ones. Thinking more along the lines of a relay being bad, but have no idea which one it could be or how to check. Any idea's would be greatly appericated.

Thanks.
Karl

 

Welcome to FTE!
Just a quick guess would be the switch is faulty.
Let's see what the others think.
AL.

 

I have a 94 Ranger, when my burns up, the only lights that work are turn sig's and headlights. Instrument and marker lights go out until I replace the switch. But also it could be just a bad connection in the wiring harness at the switch. Easy to find out, easy to fix.

 

Thanks for the idea, I guess since the switch does work somewhat, that part of the equation slipped by me. nightme_02, you said that it was easy to fix. I was looking at the dash and to me it does not look that easy to get into. Could be because its dark outside and I had poor lighting trying to look at it. But any help on how to take the dash apart (if need be) would be great.

Thanks again,
Karl

 

When I said easy, I guess I forgot that there must be somewhat drastic differences between a 94 and 02 models. In my case I can take the ashtray and radio out the dash front "pops" out\off, giving me easy access to the light switch (in about 5 minutes), considering I haven't even seen the inside of an 02 I'm not even sure what you're dealing with...but I'm sure there are others in this forum that can offer an extra hand in that arena.

Good Luck