I had a brake light go out on me a while back. I replaced the the brake/tail light shortly thereafter. I recently noticed that when I turn on the headlights, the light out warning comes on and the passenger side tail light doesn't fire. The brake light works fine, but the tail light does not illuminate. I switched the light assemblies from one side to the other and the passenger side still does not light.

It would seem to be some sort of a connection problem on the passenger side in my humble opinion.

Has anyone experienced similar problems in the past and if so how did you remedy these?

Thanks in advance for any and all assistance...Shawn

Check the brown/white wire at the right tail light wiring connector with the parking lamps on. You should have 12 volts. If you do the problem is in the bulb or its holder. If you do not have 12 volts check your fuses. I believe fuse #22 is for the right parking lights. From the headlamp switch power is fed through the fuses and then to terminal 14 of the bulb failure warning relay and out terminal 12 to the right tail light. If the fuses are good you will have to check for 12 volts at terminal 14 and 12 of the bulb failure relay If you have 12 volts at terminal 14 but not at 12 then the relay is bad. You could check this by jumpering the 2 terminals and the tail lamp should light. If you have 12 volts at terminal 12 but not at the brown/white wire at the tail light then the wiring is bad between the relay and the lamp. Hopefully I did not totally confuse you. If you have any questions just let us know. Good luck!

John, I have a similar question re. tail light wiring. The situation is this, with park/headlights on, the outboard-most tail light (passenger side) illuminates, while the composite park/brake light does not (The brake light works fine). This occured first as an isolated incident, then became chonic, finally total failure. There is no current to the copper strip from which the sockets draw power (I don't have a meter, my mechanic in Larchmont checked it). A similar situation SOMETIMES happens for the drivers side, rarely. I pulled the relay and blindly resoldered what I could, very confusing and tight in there. Little effect.

Does the outboard park light utilize the bulb relay. Does this sound like a relay problem or a line break (no short, fuse seems OK), the switch?. I do not want to go through the expense of having this diagnosed by Volvo and would prefer to jumper the park light, either from the working driver-side unit or from the still working outboard park light and pulling the bulb-out bulb out (?). Thoughts?

What year and model do you have?

John,

The car is a 1987 740 GLE (sedan). The tail light assemblies are new (2yrs old).

Try removing and replacing the tail light wiring connector at the flexible printed circuit. There may be some corrosion on that needs to be cleaned off with some fine sandpaper. If you have no power to the circuit board, and fuse #22 is good(right front parking lamp lit), you probably have a bad bulb failure relay. You can test this by jumpering pins #12 and 14 and the rear lamp should light if the wiring, bulb holder, bulb, and connectors are good. Let us know what you find.

The following was left out of my previous post: If you have 12 volts at the brown/white wire at the tail light wiring connector the problem is in one of the following components: circuit board, bulb, or its holder. Try cleanning the copper trace around the lamp opening and bulb holder contacts with some fine steel wool or sandpaper. Sorry for the omission.

John, John, John: your postings show a timespan of 8 minutes between the first (incomplete) posting and the second (corrected/amended version): do you have any idea of how much havoc can be wrought in 480 seconds? There are people "out there" just hanging on by their nails, waiting The Fix From On High, ready to run out and dismantle their kids' swing sets just to have ALL of the wood that they need for an engine job...but I digress. Better late than never, eh? Hopefully! Only time will tell.--PD (BTW: Happy No-Labor Day weekend, Yankee brethren!)