My battery has been "iffy" for a while. Lots of challenges with poor starts, low power drains, "Stupid ovah heah" leaving on both the Bluetooth adapter and the OBD2 BT plugged in, etc.

I decided to see if my glovebox lamp was turning off. I cleared out my glovebox, put in my phone on "video selfie" mode and shut the door.

One minute later, I pulled it out, and discovered the whole video to be lit up - no way to do that unless the glovebox light isn't turning off.

So I was examining the switch, and noticed that it was moving around in the holder... a LOT. Then I looked closer and found that the face of it had shattered, and the switch was flopping around in the mount.

Now I need a new switch. Junkyard?


Now, I'm a naive little buffoon, but not even I can be fooled into thinking that one light is = the only problem. No, 23 year old sportscars are apt to throw you compound curves. I will be doing a parasitic draw test per the CF recommended procedure.

 

Try Ekler's. They have a lot of this kind of stuff in their catalog. Rock Auto may have it too. Junkyards aren't a bad place to look. Personally, I'd probably just not replace it and tuck the plug back up into the dash.

 

Thought about this. The circuit needs to be open by having the switch pushed in to turn off the light. Technically I should probably reinstall the thing and screw in a flange to keep the switch in.

 

Or...remove the bulb. I just went on a spree of replacing all the incandescent bulbs I could find with LEDs. (There must be dozens in the cabin.) The glove box takes a 194. The LED uses so little juice that even if it stays on it should take weeks to have any effect on the battery. But removing the bulb, even if the circuit is closed, should leave you with no draw on that circuit.
Good luck!

 

I did the amp draw test with my digital multimeter.

The lowest I could drive the drain was about 250 mah. I started pulling fuses, relays, and everything else. I saw a trick online about clicking your door latches closed, and I did that and the the hood as well - trying to fool the computer that the doors and hood were closed.

No drains were spotted from the outside fuse box, so I moved inside. When I pulled fuse #25 (BCMI & IPC), most of the current went away. I also found a relay that was quite warm, and it was marked as "monitored."

When I pulled those two jokers, the draw was down to 25 mah. This is about what it's supposed to be.

Also, my battery is kaput. My slow charger says it's full at 100%, but that's 12.55v. Cranking draws it DOWN below 11 v.

Now, I'm pulling out a connector I put in that was supposed to use the connection to my CD deck to play from my phone's headphone jack. I think it's keeping my radio energized for a loooong time and this is wearing my battery down.

 

A new "pants-on-head" wrinkle has developed...

I'm still getting battery drain. I read a cool thread with Ersatz trying to get to the bottom of a "Fuse 25" problem... seems cars with broken IPCs were sending signals to the DIC button backlights to stay lit.

So I decided to get in my car and just hang out, to see if I could spot any lunacy going on. I just happened to touch the passenger visor, and I noticed a glow coming out from the vanity mirror. In checking out the visor, the switch for the lamp seemed to be staying on... and on. Then I noticed the door had a broken plastic tab, and the cover was loose, which was keeping the mirror lamps on the entire time.

In fact, the switch was also broken, and it would not go off unless you kind of hammered on it. It had been on so long that the left lamp had burned out.I thought, "hmm, I'll just pull out the lit bulb and that'll be an end to it." No force could make the bulb come out, so I broke out a pair of needle-nose pliers and tried to gently pull on the bulb, which promptly exploded and shot shards of glass into my mouth with such ferocity that they went back to my molars, and all over the seat and floorboard. I tried to pull the plastic housing out and all the plastic tabs holding it in to the fiberboard backing shattered and the mirror fell out, but miraculously did not break.

I just cut the wires and taped them up, spitting out glass as I went along.

So now I will have to buy a new visor.

But I think I cured my battery drain!

 

Thanks for posting the follow-up. I checked my visors and found the same problem- They were staying on with the cover closed. I read in another post that the bulbs are EXTREMELY hard to remove, so I haven't taken them out yet. I'm planning to use a piece of shrink tubing and crazy glue to pull those tiny bulbs out. If that strategy works, I'll post it here with pictures. I also have a drain at fuse 5- radio/CD player. That's almost certainly from the ipod adapter I added a while ago. I need to move a wire from the constant-hot wire to the switched wire. These are the projects that keep me busy during the pandemic.

 

If you are looking for a glove box light assembly, I have a couple. $25 shipped.
PM me for details.

Gary