About 9 mos. ago, the headlights, which have I guess a sensor to come on when it’s dark, started coming on when the car was parked and locked and no one was around it. Mechanic said $$$$$, and I should just turn the lights off when I wasn’t driving. So I have been.
Now a new, but I wonder if it’s related, issue. Driving at night, headlights on, and the dome light comes on. And the dash lights go out. Oh, and the floor light on the passenger side comes on. I was opening and closing the driver’s side door to remedy, but that’s not always possible, so now I usually put my hand over the dome light (there appears to be a sensor up there?) and it goes out after a while of me holding my hand there. Neither solution is safe or practical.
Am I going to die in a horrible electrical fire? Or failing that, what do you think could be wrong and will I have to take out a second mortgage. 2007 Grand Marquis, about 120k miles.
I have a 2004 Crown Victoria and had a lot of lighting problems. Ford contracted Motorola to build the lighting control modules (LCM) for these things and Motorola used absolutely shit parts to build them, specifically the relays. This is a known issue for earlier model years than your car, like 2002-2005, they even repaired or reimbursed owners for this problem, but I suspect they never really completely solved the issue with the LCM even in subsequent years.
A new OEM LCM will cost you anywhere from $200-500, plus labor, to replace, and they replace it with the same shit part so you’re just going to have the same issue again somewhere down the road.
The temporary fix is when your lights start acting up, give the LCM a kick (it’s just to the right of the gas pedal). Don’t kick it as hard as you can, but give it a good, decent bop.
You can solve the problem permanently by pulling the LCM out, opening it up and replacing the 4 relays. Cost me $9 and about an hour.
But my problem was with the exterior lights, not the interiors, and my issue was the lights going out, not coming on, but still.