Hi There

Greetings from across the pond. I am based in the UK and have had my 1996 Cherokee for 20 years.

It is a great car, that I use for towing boats and getting out of snow drifts in the winter. With a set of Grabber AT tyres it is at home on the road or on the muddiest slipways - boat ramps to you.

With a 3.5 ton tow weight it can handle anything, yet is neat and compact on the road, and has a style that does not age, and leaves the modern SUVs looking bloated.

Problem, all the interior lights - dome lights, load area light and footwell lights suddenly came on , and will not go out even with the doors closed.

It may have coincided with a rain storm, but that may be coincidence.


Does anyone have any suggestions as to what may be the problem.

I have looked at the door switches in case there is a short, but they don't seem to come out easily.

Does the switch on the load area light have anything to do with this?

Thanks

George

 

I believe the headlight switch turns on all the dome lights if you turn it all the way one way past the detent. Try turning it back and forth several times to see if they go off.

If not, I would push and wiggle every door switch several times. I’ve had many go bad, they always failed inoperable, but it’s possible one could fail stuck on. All it takes is one.

 

Seconding the messing with the door switches as well as the headlight switch, had one of those go bad on me and kept the lights on, luckily I noticed it before it drained anything. Otherwise you could be looking at a short somewhere.

 

Brilliant. Spot on. It was the headlight switch been turned to the left as you said. Why didn't I spot that? answer because if you look up Interior Lights in the owners manual it isn't mentioned. If you look up headlight switch, right at the end it says if you twist it you get all the interior lights on. Illogical !

By the way, on the way to this I thought of pulling the interior light fuse, except I cannot find the fuse block !

This is a RHD car, and the manual says he fuses are beneath the instrument panel, to the left of the steering wheel. Except I can't find anything here.

I can see where they would be on a US LHD car, in the right side of the dash, but nothing on mine.
Any ideas ?

Thanks

George

 

I didn't think they moved the fuses from LHD to RHD, the fuses are beneath the instrument panel, to the right of the steering wheel. From memory they're even more inaccessible than the later models: behind the knee bolster (but I could check tomorrow).

You've done well to keep your XJ for so long, so far from any support, especially in its working environment, so must assume they're fresh water craft.

The courtesy light switches come out easily enough: they're just different to what we're used to. However, it's best avoided 'cos they unscrew so it twists the wires into a plait. Oh, & the switch on the load light just turns it off, so it doesn't come on automatically.