Barring a problem in the wiring itself, the testing is of the components of the system and the connections among them, not usually extremely time-consuming, and not usually extremely expensive. Nevertheless, the repair as a whole, including testing and replacement of faulty parts, probably won’t be cheap. Bummer.
Wanna hear something strange?
The turn signals started working again yesterday afternoon. The signals coming back on coincided with the low-fuel light coming on, but I don’t know if that means anything.
Then this morning, the signals DIDN’T work for a few minutes, but kicked back in for the ride in to work. Strange.
I had changed the #4, 5, and 8 fuses late last week, with no effect. Wonder what made the signals start working again?
Are you in an area with high humidity? Do they salt the roads during the winter?
What you are describing is similar to sticking contacts on a relay module somewhere. Your power window probably has nothing to do with this, although it my be suffering from the same sort of corrosion attack of its components as well.
You need to inspect your wiring harness and especially some of the major connectors. See if you can unplug them and examine the pins and receptacles on the connector. Are they bright and shiny? Do they show the least sign of corrosion or attack? Are the pins bent or flattened?
Things that suddenly “heal” themselves are not an encouraging sign. These are known as intermittent or “soft failures” and are among the most difficult to track down. You need to start budgeting money for a thorough examination of your car’s electrical system. The number of “rollover” failures to your gas tank indicator, steering lock and other electrical devices all indicate a strong possibility of computer malfunction, wiring harness problems or random corrosion attack of certain components. All of this could lead to catastrophic failure which could strand your tuckas at the least desirable moment (i.e., an emergency). Get this looked into sooner than later.
Very high humidity here. No salt on the roads in winter, though.
“I had changed the #4, 5, and 8 fuses late last week, with no effect. Wonder what made the signals start working again?”
One time I took the cigaret lighter out & thing worked again.
Bordelond-One thing you might check is the turnsignal handle/lever/whatever they call it that goes into the steering column.According to a Ford mechanic those years are notorious for those problems.That off again on again comment is what made me think of it.
His solution- install a new lever/handle/whatever it’s called.He was also employed at a taxi company so he had many occurences of quick fix type problems to get the cars back on the road.
Other symptoms could include headlights flicker or don’t work.This could be kinda bad if you’re traveling on a dark road at night and they suddenly go out.
If you can google for a Ford message board I’ll bet you come up with some responses by mechanics (shadetree or otherwise) that have encountered this before.
** You Are Not Alone **
Others have addressed this already, but I’ll add my own experience: This is exactally what happened with my 1991 Tercel. They all stopped working, and after I replaced one bulb, they all started working again.
Either a bulb or a flasher relay is your prime suspect.
Anything electrical can go back and forth between working and not working. Of the two prime suspects, I would consider the lighting control module more likely than the turn signal switch, but unfortunately, the fact that the problem is intermittent doesn’t really help narrow it down.
If this is referring to the turn signal switch, with the lever being part of the switch, it’s certainly worth looking into. (If, however, the lever is separable from the switch assembly, and ONLY the lever is being referred to, it doesn’t make sense to me.)
“Working” isn’t useful here. I’m sure they all stopped FLASHING. I’m also sure that one bulb didn’t stop them all from COMING ON, which is the situation in this case.
On my 1998 Ford Taurus SHO , my signals quit working the same way. I had to replace the turn signal stick. It wasn’t hard, and was not that expensive to do it myself.
To JX Johns and Gary T.I’m referring to the whole lever/handle stick that contains,besides the turn signals the windshield wiper/washer and high/ low beam control.
If you replaced the handle/lever stick I’m assuming that’s what it was-ALL THE COMPONENTS on one part that attaches inside the steering column.To do it you have to take off the cowl housing.
that’s as mechanical as I can get.
From what I’ve been lead to believe that handle/lever/stick has contacts on the steering column side that make these things operate,and sometimes they either don’t make good contact because of a design flaw,or erode/pit early because of this same flaw.
I have a Ranger and every now and then( once or twice a year) the wipers will just turn on automatically.I’ve also had my turn signals malfunction a couple times.
Each time it’s ever happened I’d just turn the car off,restart it,and things were back to normal.