Long story short, my car is at a local body shop getting some rust repairs done. The shop removed the rear bumper and taillight assemblies to gain proper access.

Upon reassembly, the two warnings above appeared and alternate between warnings for the brake lamp and park lamp, irrespective if the park or headlights are on or not. The other lamps in the assembly work perfectly.

What's unusual is the lamps actually illuminate- but are very very dim. The shop is anxious to fix this on their dime but are admittedly not experts on Jaguars and are a body shop, not electrical or mechanical specialists.

What guidance can I give them?

Thanks.

 

Ideally they'd measure voltage drops to find where the missing volts are. That might for example reveal a bad power feed. Or a bad connection at the bulb. Etc.

 

Sometimes a good cleaning and burnishing of the bulb contact sockets on the lamp assembly is all that is needed. I would do this first. Easy, quick, and virtually free....

 

They tried the bad connection idea or bad socket. No joy. Ran a separate ground, no help.

Time to start disassembling again, I guess. Is there a wiring harness that goes behind the rear bumper cover?

 

Wish I could help you (body shop) out Mikey, sorry.

 

If it's a power problem then the +ve feed is a suspect as the module puts a light on using a transistor that pulls to ground. Sorry, no idea of where the wires go but some vague info will be in the Electrical Guide (see the pages before/after the relevant circuit diagram they have locations and other info).

Hope it's not water in the trunk!

 

Thanks guys. It might be time to give the car to the local whiz kid. We're very lucky to have one given the small size of our town.

I am hopeless when it comes to electrics. Since electrons cannot be seen, I deny their existence and instead believe in smoke tubes. Don't want to see any smoke on this project.

 

Quite. It's the smoke that makes electrics work. Any time you see the smoke escaping, things are liable to stop working.