1997 Ford Taurus vehicle lighting system

140,000 MILES • 6 CYL • FWD • AUTOMATIC
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JIM ALBRIGHT
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I am trying to help a high school kid with little or no money to fix his problem. His headlights stay on all the time and he has been driving around and pulling the fuses to turn off his lights. I noticed, and he did not know that his tail light are not working when his headlights are on. He has been very lucky not causing an accident or been arrested. I started by pulling out the head light switch and checked for hot wire feeding the switch. I then commenced jumping from each connection and found that all lights work when hot wire is run to each connection. I also found when hot wire is jumpered to one connection the headlights go out and stay out until you turn them back on with the switch. Also all dash lights are also off until you run a hot jumper to correct connection. I figured the problem was in the switch and we checkecd with Ford Dealer and switch lists for $240. He called around and found a used one for $25, but this did not correct the problem. Any help would be appreciated and I will donate to help him out as he and his mother struggle to make ends meet. Thanks for you help. Having trouble with accepting donation section. Please e-mail and I will donate.
Dec 28, 2007 at 3:55 AM
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JIM ALBRIGHT
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  • 2 POSTS
Thanks for you prompt return. To answer your questions ----headlights stay on all the time, with key on or off. The only way to get headlights to go off is pull fuses, or as I stated with switch disconnected, I jump from hot wire to one terminal which turns them off. They will then stay off, even with fuses back in and only come on when you reistall the switch and turn to on. The tail lights and dash lights never come on through switch, only when I jump to certain terminals from the hot wire.

Again, thanks for any info you can come up with.
Dec 29, 2007 at 2:37 AM
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