I recently purchased a 2004 impala (former) police cruiser with the 3.8 litre engine for my teenager who wants to become a police officer. The car is great it has 41,000 miles, no accidents, and brand new brakes, rotors, battery, new serpentine, tie rods and goodyear eagle rsa's tires. Engine and trans run smooth and it drives like a new car, well almost. After driving for about ten minutes the headlights will shut off. If I hit the highbeam lever they come back on only to cut out again a few minutes later. Keep in mind this car as a survailence mode swith that shuts off the horn and turns on some of the lights. It probably originally turned on the red lights but now only turns on the headlights.
A friend who is a mechanic swapped out the headlight module on the left side dash fuse box with the batterry overload module which is on the right side fuse box just to see if it was the module.
The lights continue to shut off after running for ten minutes or so. When the car is started the drl's don't operate properly. Without pulling the headlight switch out, only the high beams should come on during the day but instead all the lights come on. We also noticed the ignition switch seems loose or slightly bent.
We're not certain if it could be the switch, the module or a maybe a relay. I was also told by a gm technician that he's seen this on several other models and it could be a pcm or bad ground and that a dealer could reprogram the system. What is the best route to go with this? It also appears that the previous battery sparked on the underside of the hood. Could that be realted?
Ps with 41,000, what else can I expect to be replacing soon.
Friday, June 26th, 2020 AT 12:14 PM
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