I wanted to use the power outlet in the glove box to charge my cell phone, rather than the cigar lighter in the center console, but couldn't get it to work when I plugged in the phone adapter. The cigar lighter has been working just fine but it's a bit messy with no good place to situate the phone and the associated wire. This morning I decided to investigate why the outlet in the glove box would not work. There 3 wires going to the plug from the loom. Facing the connector so the wires are at the back, these are arranged, Top - black, RHS - red/white, LHS - green/white. After a lot of checking with a multimeter, including a polarity comparison with the cigar lighter, I took the accessory outlet connector apart and swopped the locations of the red/white and green/white wires. Now it works! What I no longer have is the nice green glow of the little backlight, but I'll take the unlight outlet that works over the lit one that doesn't any day. Is it possible the connector was mis-wired in the factory, or is something else going on?

Paul.

 

Paul, some circuits are only live when the key is on, or go off 10 minutes after the key is switched off to prevent battery drain. I forget that outlet is there, I'll have to try it out! Brandon

 

The glovebox outlet in my X350 does go off when the car goes to sleep, I use mine to power an incar dash video camera and it switches off when I leave the car.
My guess is that you are now powering the socket from the lighting circuit that used to power the green back light as the lighting circuits would be live all the time, when you remove the keys and your lights are still on the dashboard lights stay illuminated.

 

Gentlemen, Thank you for the responses. I was aware that the accessory outlet only receives power when the key is on. I suppose I am now using the power intended for illumination to power the socket. I can change the wiring back pretty quickly now that I have figured out how to disassemble the connector but it seems as though I should have two +12v feeds to the connector, through the green/white and red/white wires, with the solid black wire being the common ground. If so, I'll have to look at the fuses a bit more closely next to figure out why the green/white wire is dead.
Thanks
Paul.

 

The power outlets front and rear are fed by one relay, the cigarette lighters are fed by another relay. Both switch 12V on with the key on, ground is constant.

The 12v to the glove box outlet should be White with a Green stripe. Common ground is Black. The red with white strip is the illumination, controlled by the dimmer for the instrument lamps.

Hopefully the schematic below can show you the multiple fuses involved in this circuit. Power point 64 is fed by the 175A Maxi fuse (most of the car would be dead if this did not work).