adam1991

Hi again all,

As you may have seen from my other thread, I've got a couple projects to straighten out on my new-to-me Christmas gift. In addition to the dash lights, it seems that my rear door switches--the ones in the body that tell the dome light or alarm to come on--don't do anything. No dome light, no alarm, and the remote unlock feature doesn't know that the rear doors are open so after 30 seconds the doors will relock if I don't also open the front doors. This is a pain when you have little kids that take a couple minutes to get settled in.

Does anyone have any words of wisdom for troubleshooting this problem? I'd like to start with taking the door switches out and testing them with a jumper; what's the procedure for getting these out? I'd be happy to replace them. My guess is the rear doors got just about zero use on this car before me, and I'm hoping that the simplest explanation is the correct one: that both switches are simply broken and need to be replaced.

Any help anyone can offer is greatly accepted. Thanks.

amf1932

Generally, this problem happens in the rear door switches due to lack of use. The contacts in the switch become oxidized. I had this problem in my '94 ES and I used a contact cleaner to fix them up.

adam1991

Just what I thought.

Did you pull the switches, or did you just spray in there inside the boot?

amf1932

I didn't have to remove the switches. I pulled out the rubber boot and sprayed contact cleaner into the switch. That did the trick. I would try that first before removing the switch(s).

adam1991

And in fact that worked like a charm. Thanks again.

kreativ

haha, I should've thought of that before replacing the switches. Cost ~$15 a piece and had to remove panels and seat belt regulator to replace.