HERE IS A POST OFF THE LEXUS WEB SITE REGARDING THE LIGHTER. IT DOES HAVE A "HIDDNE" FUSE LINK. JUST THOUGHT YOU MIGHT WANT TO KNOW.
If you have had your front cigarette lighter stop working, and have done a search of this forum, you know no one has found a fix past checking and replacing the 15 amp fuse located under the drivers side panel.
Well my front lighter went dead when a shop was working on the center console. They ended up telling me it was an issue with the wiring harness.
Well the easy thing would have been to give up and run a new power source and plug. But I wanted to fix it.
I replaced the 15 amp fuse. That got the rear lighter to work, but the front one was still dead.
I pulled the complete ashtray out of the car ( directions on LexLs site).
Using a volt meter and Ohm meter I started to trace and check all wires. I fount I had power at the connector from the harness to the ashtray assembly. I even had power down to the connector on the lighter [plug itself wire the +12volts connect to the lighter). Ground was also good. But the plug was still dead!
Well this made no sense to me. So I took the lighter socket plug apart. I cleaned all surfaces etc. But still no power when plugging into the socket. I had power on the back side connectors, but not on the inside of the plug!
I then started looking at the connectors on the back again. Well you have 3 connectors connecting the +12 volts to the lighter. Four if you count the ground wire.
The connector that connects the ashtray to the wiring harness has 4 wires on it. 2 are yellow. They go to the lights on the ashtray. One is black. That is the ground wire. Then you have a gray wire. That Gary wire feeds the 12+ volts to the lighter! If you look at it you will see it is a thin wire and I did not feel it was right for a 15 amp circuit.
Well follow that +12 volts to the lighter. That connects to a crimp fitting and it looks like that feeds the power to the plug. Surprise! It does not, it is part of another connector built into the plug. This connector is a piece of brass. Right across from where that wire connects, you will see a short black wire that connects to two brass crimp points. That is a fusible link! I had to look at mine with a magnifying glass to see that it blew. This black wire is crimped to the brass pieces that the +12 volts is crimped to. That short black wire is then crimped to another brass crimp point. It is this point the really connects to the center power point of the lighter.
I used a small knife to open up the crimps and pulled the black wire out. I replaced it with a new wire and re-crimped both connection points. Bingo power was back to the front lighter.
If you carefully take the lighter apart by undoing the nut on the back and very carefully inspect the parts you will see the insulating washer the separates the +12 volts from the real connection point though the little black wire.
I'm guessing Lexus felt that the thin gray wire they used was to light for a 15 amp draw, so they fused the lighter with a link!
SPONSORED LINKS
Sunday, May 13th, 2012 AT 3:34 PM
