Alright so pretty much I had an extremely interesting day. I started my morning off with waking up around 6 so i could leave and make it into town on time to go to work. I get there and everythings fine, cars going great no big deals. Park the car, leave it sit for a couple hours.

Its been raining all morning, I come back to the car, go get lunch and I noticed the "Small Lights" fuse is blown because my gauge cluster and corner lights arent working. Figure its no big deal, start up the car and go get lunch.

I parked where I cant really park so I put the blinkers on, locked the car and went inside. I was inside for maybe 5-10mins. Come back out and try unlocking my car..guess what, keyfob doesnt work. I had to manually unlock the car. Didnt know what the problem was, though maybe the battery or starter went bad. I tried jumping it..no luck. Called AAA, see if they knew what it was...yeah.. the dude that came out was a complete fucking idiot. And all he was concerned about was leaving, so I said fuck it, leave. Call me a flat bed and gtfo here. He argued with me that the flatbed would cost me 10 bucks more. I was like seriously, i dont care. A normal tow truck comes..and positions themselves to tow me. I was like no no noooo thats not happening. He asked what was up and why I needed towed. Told him my situation and he starts messing with some things. Found out the battery was fine, had power so we started the car by jumping it through the starter. That way he didnt have to tow me.

I told him the previous guy was an utter douchebag and he happened to know exactly who he was and was pretty much like yeah he's 'done'. So I had my car running. The corner lights still not working. So I drive home, leave the car running, and then head up to firestone which is conveniently across the street from my other job, which I had to work at later. I turn off the car, tried starting it again. No luck. The car wasnt even locking or unlocking from inside. So I assumed it was maybe a alarm issue, a call to Chris confirmed some ideas as well. So I checked the fuses, found out my Security Door Lock, i think thats what it was called was blown. That was preventing me to start my car. Put a new one in there and we were good. Swapped out the old "small lights" fuse and put a new one in..within seconds of being on it blows out again. Tried again, and same results. For some reason my small lights fuse continues to blow out.

Question: Does anyone know if the entire tail light is connected to the small lights fuse or just the corners of the tail?

Anyway, I still have no idea why the fuse blows within seconds. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. Also, the corner lights work when the alarm is activated [lock & unlock] and they also all work when the brakes are applied. So this cancels out the blown light bulb idea or burnt 3rd brake light. Any ideas?

Oh and to end the night, I was leaving work an hour ago and I see a SUV speed up behind me. Weird but I continue to drive. Then I see flashing lights..Awesome right? No. I continue to drive because we were on a bridge with no shoulder. In Florida, pulling over on a main road is not a good idea, always suggested to go off a side road. Well..im not in FLA right now so he wasnt happy about it. But regardless, He wanted to make sure I knew my taillights were all out and since I had a 'dark' car it was hard to tell what was going on. Fortunately he wasnt a dick about my tint that is EXTREMELLYYYY illegal in PA. He let me go and I went on with my shitty day.

Now I'm home ranting about my entire day.

Regardless, heres my questions:

What could make a fuse blow continuously within seconds?

Does anyone know if the entire tail light is connected to the small lights fuse or just the corners of the tail?

Thanks guys, im gonna go pass out..

 

sorry to hear, but you have a short some where in the circuit. its gonna be a pain to find.

 

probably a short. sorry to hear about your day though sounds like one of them stressful days.. on the bright side at least the cop was sorta koo and he didn't give you a ticket for the tint or else you probably would of

 

What was your last electrical modification? Any aftermarket gauge faces etc?

 

^^ that is the best place to start. same exact issue, face guages were blowing because the passenger vanity mirror light was grounding out. you can test each connection somehow. but i would go back to the lighting you may have added and just check the mirror light to see if it works.

 

I had this problem when one of the LEDs I had in the corners went bad. I must have went through 6 fuses before I could determine which one it was.

 

So it was the security fuse after all that was keeping it from starting? Glad I gave you somewhere to start. As for the wiring/lighting, it def sounds like some led related issues, glad the cop let you go at least, that's shocking

 

I havent installed any lights recently. I havent actually touched anything electrical in a while. The only thing that happened recently was when my mechanic changed my rear suspension he took off the ground for my subs and amp that was attached to the top of the strut. Those work, so I'm assuming its not that. I did have blue led's in my headlights that were connected using the corner lights power. So I was going to rip those wires out today because they burned out a while ago and I disconnected them. But I'm thinking water may have gotten to the extremely little exposed wire or they're grounding out.

I'm pretty sure my vanity mirrors lights dont work either. Right now the gauge lights dont go on, vanity mirror lights, front corners, and the entire rear tail light. I dont think they are all on the same "small lights" fuse are they?

How do I go about fixing a short in the circuit?

 

Yeah, you were complaining about toyota charging you 100, i would have had it at acura charging me like 300. thank god I didnt do that. They guys at firestone want like 90 an hour to go through all my electrical shit. I was like nawww, I'll find it myself. thanks.

 

I could help you look if you're really stuck, def sounds like the crappy leds that are burnt out

 

It was the crappy led's that burned out..i think. I ripped out the one set that was still in there, dead. then retaped all the stripped wire that I knew off. Which isnt much, just small incisions. But I taped them up pretty decent anyway. The one set of wires had salt on them..which leads me to believe that during the torrential downpour we had yesterday, water may have gotten to exposed wire. I swapped in the new fuse, and we were set. So i'm back to rollinnn. Getting my car re-aligned today I think, then puttin the wheels back on soon.

 

Salt would explain it... regular old water does not conduct electricity very well but if you got a TON of salty water in there, it is very possible. I'd say it is unlikely, but still possible.

 

Rain + Pittsburgh Roads in the winter = TON OF SALTY WATER. But still, I dont know if that was the reason either. It was either that, or just the wires were grounding out. I retaped exposed wire and now its fine.

Still don't know how my Security system fuse blew out.. that was weird.

 

Well your parking lights, door locks, trunk release, starter, and several other things, are all tied into the security brain. Get a short in one of them and you are bound to pop its fuse. Your car would not start due to the starter kill in the system going into an open circuit. In our cars if you are to install an alarm, 80% of the wiring is under the passenger seat at that module. Most Honda's have either a security brain or a plug that would go to said brain. Whenever I do alarms I just dig around til I find that lovely green connector. I can grab my door triggers there, power locks, parking lights, trunk/hatch release, ignition triggers, keysense, disarm/arm wires... I love those modules.

 

When your light fuse blew it sent a surge that popped your alarm fuse

 

that fuse has blown before though with no effect to the security fuse.

oh and...I just found out I have a burnt out headlight. I'm gonna kill myself. holy hell.

 

It depends on how bad the surge is. When my small lights fuse blew it kept taking out something with it. If you were standing outside of the car you could hear the fuse go POP!

 

sorry about your troubles

looks like you'll just have to ride down to miami with me

 

Yeah I still dont know what it could be. Also found out my suspension is pretty squeaky when turning, so i dont know what needs to be done to get rid of that..

Thanks, and yeah dude, I just found out that I'll be arriving at 9am though, so I dont know if I'll be able to make it to Miami by 12. thats the only thing.

 

Yeah, my 4runner door fuse blew 20 times without blowing the ecu fuse too

 

all this sounds prtty complicated ... my car was broken into a few months ago, and they dissabled the alarm in it. now my clock does not work and the chirp does not work. but iam able to start the car tho'. glad i dont have that problem.

 

So I took my headlight bulb back to Advance Auto Parts with the receipt I just so happened to save in my center console, and said that it burned out within less then a month and they gave me a new one and considered a defective return. So woohoo. And then even though it was like 10 degrees outside I washed my car inside the one detail garage I used to work at. Then discovered scratches along my front bumper from my mechanics jeans or something rubbing on it. Atleast I think thats what its from, I have no idea what else it could be. So I'm hoping they can be buffed out. If not, the front bumper might be getting repainted anyway.