Car-fixing Dopers - help?

OK, I’m a little bit of a neophyte where my car is concerned - I’m good with tools once I know what needs to be done, but diagnostics are beyond my current abilities.

Here’s the situation: When I turn on my right blinker, the indicator light on my instrument panel stays steady (no “blinking” or rhythmic click noise) and from what I can tell, the front blinker doesn’t come on. I haven’t had a chance to check the rear blinker as I discovered the phenomena on my way to work and didn’t see a blinker in the reflection in the paint of the car in front of me…

The left blinker works perfectly.

Is this a burned out fuse? A faulty bulb making its presence known? An electrical problem? The hand of God telling me not to turn right?

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Relay. That’s the think that makes the clicking noise when you turn the indicator on.

It’s probably the bulb burned out. The relay is ok because the left turn signal works.

Sounds like a bulb to me too. They’re a lot cheaper to replace and be wrong than diagnostics on relays and stuff, so I’d start there.

With the bulb burned out, the circuit cannot be complete (or it’s considered open) hence the relay will not fire.

First thing to check is the bulb. Many blinker relays are current driven, and are “sized” for the combined current draw of all bulbs on one side that should blink.

With one bulb burned out, you may not have enough current draw to trip the bi-metal strip inside the relay, and the remaining lights don’t blink.

It could be a bad relay, but try the bulb first.

Ugly

I vote bulb, as well.

(This can also throw you off if you’re driving a car that uses the same bulb for the turn signal and for the running/marker/parking lights–although those are getting fewer each year. The light may come on fine when you turn on the signal, but not blink, letting you think the bulb is OK. However, on a mixed use bulb, there are two filaments. One is used for the parking lights and both are used for the brighter blinking light. If one burns out, the other filament may continue to light up, giving the appearance that the bulb is working, but failing to draw enough current to trigger the relay. Even if the light comes on, try switching to a new bulb before thinking the relay is broken.)

This has happened to me many times. At least once on every car I’ve owned.

It’s the bulb, bub.

Thanks, guys…it was kinda unnerving and considering the repair bills I’ve had this year (it’s an 11 year old car…) I had one of those sinking feelings in my gut when it happened.

Now I just need to figure out what screws to undo to get to the bulb…shouldn’t be hard.

Heh. I hope it’s not going to be hard. However, my experience with cars tells me that one must account for unpleasant suprises. Most modern signal fixtures allow you to pop the bulb out from behind without messing with the actual lenses.

One thing which may or may not be important. The mechanics I learned from cautioned me to handle the new bulb as little as possible with my bare hands. According to them, the oils from your fingers can create a “hot spot” on the bulb, shortening its life. I’ve never figured out if this is a true phenomenon or one of the many mechanics’ legends.

Sofa-- True, absolutly true, however only for the Halogen headlight bulbs. the wimpy blinker bulbs are not much effected. so, you can finger your winker, but don’t grope the highbeams!

(sorry about that!)

I’ve always heard that caution in reference to halogen bulbs particularly. This article implies that the oils from your finger don’t allow heat from the bulb to convect away, creating a hot spot. I imagine that this would cause the bulb to break because of the high thermal gradient at the edge of the hot spot, as opposed to the high absolute temperature.

I thought he wanted to fix his car!!!

It is the bulb. Without it there is no complete circuit.

As for how to replace the bulb, your Owner’s Manual is a good start.

Bulb
Fuse
Relay
In that order of liklihood.

You’ve never read the owners manual for my car…it’ll tell me which bulb to buy and it’ll verify that it CAN be replaced, but as for how to do it…

It shouldn’t be hard, I just have to crawl under the car and get behind the bumper to get to the bulb…

Oh, and Sofa? This year has taught me that no car repair is ever without surprises…we had to change out the alternator in my wife’s car. My buddy and I figured it’d be a 30 minute operation. Disconnecting the old alternator took 10 minutes. Removing it from the engine compartment (did I mention that Saturn mounts the alternator behind and under the engine, but above the air conditioner, and leaves no way to remove it?) took two hours. Installing the new one took 20 minutes.

Don’t even get me started about replacing my brake pads…

Bulb. visit auto store ask for a bulb. Bring your car registration with you cause it has the info they need to find which one you need. telling us the exact year & model of your vehicle would have been a nice start.

Dude, relax. I don’t go looking for auto parts unless I know exactly what the part I need is. If it’s a bulb, I find out exactly what part number GM lists it as, and usually don’t need to talk to anybody except the cashier as I pay for it. I’m no good with diagnostics, but once it’s established what the problem is, I look it up in the shop manual and do what needs to be done. The question I posted here was a general “what does it mean when a car does this?” sort of thing. Blinker systems work pretty much the same no matter what year and model the car is, as evidenced by the good advice I’ve gotten in this thread.

I know where you’re coming from - usually the guy who doesn’t even know what kind of car he has or what part he actually needs is the guy who’s in front of me at the counter and turns a 10 minute trip to the parts store into a 30 minute slice of frustration. Not all beginners lack common sense, some of us just lack experience.

I think they make new cars with the intent that you have to bring them to the shop to have anything done on them. Check out the air filter on my Honda, right next to the body and there’s no room to manipulate or even get a screw driver in there. Honda has a special tool to do that.