Club 80-90 Forums

Just a quick question, had my MOT yesterday and all passed fine, however, the interior lights are coming on while driving at about 20mph and above. Any ideas on what might have happened?

Twistedpro wrote:Just a quick question, had my MOT yesterday and all passed fine, however, the interior lights are coming on while driving at about 20mph and above. Any ideas on what might have happened?

Do they work normally off a cab door? I wonder if there's a loose wire to a door switch that's earthing out once it starts swinging about.

The left-field suggestion would be that somebody's put an alarm on that's trying to auto-lock the doors, but they've mucked the wiring up...

Its a warning that you're going WAY too fast near a school. VW built this into some models, same as the wing mirrors that fold back if you exceed 50pmh.

Yep, sounds like a loose wire to me too.

Yes they work off the cab door normally, another little quirk of the van!!!

I think it might be best to start with the lights themselves as they can be prone to loose connections. They just pull out of their fittings. Start there and make sure nothing is shorting on the unit or against the body work. To my knowledge they are always live and only need a connection to earth to come on. The same is true of door switches which you can undo and check the attached cable. If not its elsewhere in that circuit which could be under the dash or near the fusebox.

If you've got a switch on the tailgate to turn the interior lights on, check the tailgate is fully shut, I had a very similar problem caused by that.

It was the rear door closure, the mat was just stopping the door closing properly. Thanks for the help, I feel quite stupid now

We all get those moments!

Twistedpro wrote:Yes they work off the cab door normally, another little quirk of the van!!!

Would a Caravelle have had them on slider & tailgate originally? I'd have thought it would.

Mine has.

I fitted light switches to the sliding door and tailgate so the van is alarmed on all the openers. However, I had a similar problem to you where the interior light would flicker on intermittently. Turned out to be one of the front doors switches wasn't quite pushing in enough and the flexing of the door in its opener would just be enough for the switch to make contact.
As these switches are not a adjustable I ended up sticking a small rubber patch onto where the switch touches.



Martin