I have a 97 Firebird Formula Firehawk and just noticed my rear tail lamps (including the rear markers) are not lighting up when the headlights / parking lights are turned on. The brake lamps, rear turn signals (including the rear markers), hazards all work fine.

I checked the tail lamp bulbs and the right side 194 tail lamp bulb was blown so I replaced it checked again but still have the same issue. I checked all the rear bulbs and they all looked good, I did change the rest of the 194 bulbs just in case but still have the issue.

I checked the fuses as well and nothing was blown there either.

I do have a basic alarm with keyless entry and all the lights in the back blink just fine when arming / disarming.

Any ideas what this issue could be?

Thanks!

 

Bumping for follow up please.

 

The rear lights have 2 circuits. Low is driving lights and high is everything else. Since it's only the low that's acting up you need to look for a break in the main wire running back or possibly a bad connection at the spot where the main harness connects to the rear harness.

If you use a tester you can see where the power stops along that path. If it's not a bad connection then it would probably be the headlight switch itself. I say get a cheap voltmeter or even a light up tester and check every connection you can find along the path while you have your driving lights on.

 

Thanks for the reply.

I forgot to add this firehawk is high mileage (150k miles) and I think this may also have something to do with the headlight switch. There are times when I turn on the headlights and they do not flip up (left flip up motor died last year & was replaced, works fine now) but lights are on. If I switch them off and on again they flip up just fine. This only happens here and there.

I will check out the low circuit this weekend, thanks again for the info!

 

Found the problem, its a poor spice soldering job done by the alarm installer on the rear tail light wire.
Going to fix the spice and solder it properly and use heat shrink later today.

 

That's good news. Hopefully it's a quick fix for you.

 

Fixed and working now after re-soldering it correctly,

Thanks again for the info!