OUfearless

Got stopped by a cop last night because my tail lights went out when I hit my brakes. If the lights are not on, the brake lights work. If the lights are on, not only do the brake lights not work, the tail lights go out when I touch the brakes. Obviously, this means no night time driving. Any ideas of what's up?????????

obidya

there is a light module in the back drivers side, under the plastic right up near the lift gate. sounds like its bad

obidya

it may also cause the "rear lamp failure" warning
mine is like that and only fails when i apply the brakes while the headlights are on.

OUfearless

Thanks Obidya, I'll check that out. The "rear lamp failure" warning has not came on. I didn't know all of the rear lights were going out until I got stopped. Did you have to replace your module?

4Doors

What year are you working on? I'm speaking about a WJ, but maybe some of this will also apply to a ZJ if that's what you've got.

You can start with the simple and free attempt of prying the prongs up in your taillight housing where the bulb sockets twist in to make sure they have a good contact.

As you check this, make sure the wires in the plug that attaches to your tail light housing are fully connected to the plug. I had 2 on each side that were loose and it gave me all sorts of trouble until I happened to find that.

If it's been a while since your bulbs were replaced, I'd spend a few bucks on that. Even though they can appear to be fine, they can still sometimes be faulty.

The next thing to check would be the flasher relay under the dash that can go bad, and it's usually caused by hairline cracks in the soldering. I fixed mine by simply touching a hot soldering pencil tip to the prongs to re-solder them and it was good to go.

If none of that fixes your issues, you're going to have to look at replacing the tail light housing because the circuit board on the inside will eventually crack and fail to work. Your turn signal switch can also go bad, causing weird things to happen, even when you press the brake pedal.

Hope some of this is helpful.

PatriotGT

^^ what 4Doors said. I had my left side doing that. Turned out that the
socket that the bulb plugs into had overheated aburned out. Replaced it
with one from O'Reileys ($2) and haven't had a problem since.

OUfearless

It's a 2001 Grand Cherokee Limited. I've already replaced all of the bulbs. The problem only occurs when the headlights are turned on and I touch the brakes. The only light that comes on when I hit the brakes is the middle one at the top of the liftgate. It's very strange. Obviously something is not making a connection when the headlights are on. The brake lights work fine in the daytime.

PatriotGT

mines a 99 Laredo. Mine woked fine with the headlights off, bulbs were good.
The socket had a bad ground.

BadPig

my wife's jeep ('04 Grand Cherokee) is doing the same thing except it's just the right side lights that go out. We took it to the dealership and they "fixed" it about 3 or 4 months ago but she got pulled over a couple days ago. The cop was really cool at least, he didn't even give her a written warning just told her to fix it. Guess I know how I'm spending the night, Thanx guys.




Edit: Went back down and buffed the contacts with the Dremel, as I was putting it back together I noticed that the bulb socket had been put in the wrong way so that only 2 contacts were getting juice. I took it apart earlier and just put it back together the way it was when I started, thinking that the dealer guy gets paid for this he must have done it right. Wrong. Anyway it's fixed now and we don't have to worry about getting ticketed or another maint. charge for the time being. Thanks again guys!!