That one Wednesday when three cars came in with the same weird electrical gremlin

It started with a 2017 Civic that kept blowing the same 10 amp fuse for the taillights. Then a Ford Escape rolled in with the exact same issue an hour later. By lunch, a regular's old Chevy truck was on the lift with a blown fuse in the same spot on the diagram. We spent the whole afternoon chasing what we thought were separate problems before my boss pointed out they all got washed at the same new car wash in town last weekend. Has anyone else seen a batch of cars with identical faults from something like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

hannah_perry1mo ago

Yeah, that bad seal on the third brake light is a classic. I've seen water travel down the harness and pool right at a connector under the rear seat or in the trunk side panel. On those cars you mentioned, I'd pull back the trunk liner and check for dampness. A good test is to unplug that main rear body harness connector and look for green fuzz on the pins. A shop vac on the connector and some dielectric grease usually fixes it for good.

emma_dixon7029d ago

Had a whole line of F-150s with water in the trailer light plug. The car wash soap they used left a conductive film that shorted the pins after it dried. We ended up blowing out every connector with air and spraying them down with electrical cleaner. Told the wash owner to switch soaps and the problems stopped.

joel_hall171mo ago

That new car wash probably has a high pressure wand getting water into a common connector. We traced a similar issue to a bad seal on a third brake light housing letting water drip right down the wiring harness. It's always worth checking for a shared point of failure when multiple cars have the same odd problem.