Hey guys, I am kind of perplexed here. I took my ranger to the body shop for paint after hitting a big piece of tire tread, and now my lights are acting up. The body work included replacing the front bumper cover (with my fogs) and repainting the entire driver side of the vehicle. The day I picked it up, I found that my rear pass side blinker didn't work and they replaced the bulb. I thought that was cool until I found that the same tail light doesn't work, but the blinkers and brakes do. Then, two nights ago I was doing some front end work and after it got dark I realized that my front passenger side corner light isn't on with my lights, and the driver side is... wtf?

I don't get it and I don't know where to even begin troubleshooting this. I don't know how they could have messed up the lights and I won't even know what to say to them when I go back tomorrow to get it resolved. They could tell me "it was just that way" and I'd have to suck it up..

Any electrical guru's have any thoughts on this.. perhaps can tell me what to look for or mention??

 

Sounds like you just had a couple of bad bulbs. I'd just replace them and keep an eye on them.

 

Hitting that large piece of tire tread, or the removal of front body pieces could have caused the bulb filiments to break loose. As a previous post stated, replace all the bulbs, and see how that goes. It's likely that all the bulbs are the same age, so as one goes, the others are not going to be far behind.

When I was relocated to the Dallas Texas area for a year, I had a local police officer that enjoyed pulling me over in the wee hours of the morning on my way to work to inform me I had a blown light; he used that excuse to run my insurance, registration, and license. Just justifying his job I guess, or stalling until the donut shop opened. After three stops within two months from him, I bought new bulbs for every light fixture that truck had. This way I figured I was good for a couple of years.

I did this recently to my 2000 Ranger. Even bought two new front headlight housings, as I got tired of using the products that claim to cure the faiding of the plastic headlight lenses; they work for about a month, then you start all over again to clear that fog.

Change them all.

 

Lol, that cop.. I have known a few to be like that myself. I can understand your motivation to replace EVERYTHING. I actually just got back from the shop that did my body work. Turns out that the front corner the worked on was just burnt. As for the tail light, they replaced that bulb the day I picked it up originally, but with the wrong bulb type, so that was a quick fix as well thankfully.

Thanks guys, you were both right!