infinityonhigh

My license plate light has never worked and today I tested to see if it had power going to it.....it doesn't. I'm thinking (hoping) it might be a loose connection somewhere, but I have no idea where the two wires for the light ends and the connection to some power source begins. Does anybody happen to know where I could check to see if its not "plugged in" or have a wiring diagram I could look at? Also, what fuse does it run off of? Does it run off a fuse? Thanks you.

dustindu4

Mine doesn't work either and I got pulled over for it 2 days ago. I'm gonna check to see if it's the bulb or not. I can't pull up the wiring diagram until tonight but I guarantee it runs into the tail light harness

infinityonhigh

That would be great dustin if you could get a diagram for that. At least for me I know my bulb is fine. I'll try to investigate a little more.

DynamicmustangGT

check the fuse, it sounds strange but 1 fuse controlled that on my ford taurus (98) and the burnt out bulb did it to the fuse

infinityonhigh

The manual that comes with the car does not specify that it runs off its own fuse, thats why I'm trying to figure out if it does run of its own fuse or is spliced with say the taillights fuse or something. Just trying to solve this little nagging problem.

dustindu4

I forgot all about this, I'll look into it tonight If I can find my Ford DVD

Did you try changing the bulb yet? My third brake light went out on my car too before and it was the bulb

infinityonhigh

Yeah I checked the bulb and it was fine. I did find the problem though, It was a loose connection under the trunk carpet. Now if all problems could be that simple.

Dineau

Seems to be inside the left side harness

metroplex

I know this won't help your situation, but I swapped out my incandescent license plate lamps to white LEDs. These stay a lot cooler and won't cause a vehicle fire or burn out unexpectedly. The only problem might be that they appear white (like HID/4100K white) and not yellow like the incandescents. Luckily, SAE J578's definition of "white" is very broad.

infinityonhigh

Did you build the LED light from scratch or did you buy it pre-made? Sounds like a good Idea.

theedge67

Whew! I've been so worried about my Mustang randomly catching fire from the red hot license plate lamps, I'm going to get some LED's pronto!!

metroplex

I bought them off a vendor from eBay. The stock lamp is just a 168/194 lamp. I went with the inverted cone LED which is the least brightest LED, but it draws the least current and runs the coolest. It will illuminate the plate just fine at night. You can get a 5 SMT LED that will be very bright:

http://stores.ebay.com/V-LEDS_194-16...QQftidZ2QQtZkm

Steve: LOL!! I've heard of burnt plate lamps on CVPIs so I decided to take the initiative.

dustindu4

seriously, who puts a license plate light mod in their sig? AHAHAHA

metroplex

Seriously, who still uses incandescent lighting? Welcome to the 21st century and enjoy your modern LEDs.