1997 Pontiac Sunfire Headlight not lighting even with bulb

1997 PONTIAC SUNFIRE
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BRAN1010
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1997 Pontiac Sunfire

Hi there!

This is a fairly bizarre problem I think. And need help for sure.

The headlight in front of the drivers seat (the right headlight, I think?) stopped working recently. Thinking the bulb blew, I replaced it and fitted everything back in. Oddly, the light still didn't work. The other one worked fine.

Thinking it might be a fuse problem next, I checked the fuses to see if they were dirty. I cleaned the blue fuses off, re-inserted them, and still found it wasn't working.

Now! What I did was, swap the left and right headlight fuses around, to see what would happen then. The same thing happened, with the working light working, and the non-working light still not working.

So what I did next was take the right headlight fuse out (the top one), to see what'd happen. What happened was that both lights worked, but were very dim. So I dont think its a wiring problem?

Any help? Guidelines?
Mar 7, 2009 at 11:35 AM
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F4I_GUY
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In your wiring harness there is a joint where one wire spreads off to two wires leading to both headlights. Usually this joint corrodes and kills the power to one headlight.

I will try and find a wiring schematic for you.

Have you checked if yo uhave power getting to the bulb? If you have very low voltage reaching the socket, that is most likely your issue.
Mar 7, 2009 at 7:53 PM
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BRAN1010
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That'd be much appreciated.

And.. i have no real clue how to find out if it's getting power. Cars are definitely not my thing!

Is new wiring and such hard/difficult to replace? Whats a rough price on getting that done?

Cheers!
Mar 8, 2009 at 3:49 PM
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F4I_GUY
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To measure voltage at the headlight, remove the headlight bulb connector and one of the pins should of voltage. With a voltmeter or test light. Hook the black or negative lead to a chassis ground and the red lead or test light to the pins. You should see voltage with the headlights turned on.

Usually you will pay a minimum of 1 hour labour for diagnostic, depending on what the problem is
Mar 8, 2009 at 4:22 PM