Light keeps burning out

[Mr.T]

Ok my driverside front blinker burned out so I replaced it and maybe an hour later it burned out again. Its the 3rd time Ive replaced it. Anyone know whats going on?

[bret_xi]

mine does that too.. except its my passenger side one... what kinda car do u have? mines a 99 firebird... i replaced it like 3 times within the first month of havin it.. then it was fine til about a week ago.. and i've replaced it twice since then

[Mr.T]

I have a '98 camaro

[My_Teal_V6]

Did you inspect the wires for cracks or frays? The socket may have some contaminates in it.

[Loochy88]

im not sure, but if its anything like your foglights i hear the oil on your skin can cause that.

[fenderman]

When I pulled both front turn signal lenses out to swap them for clear ones I noticed that both sockets were melted and burned at the end as if the heat from the lamp was too much for the plastic. Interestingly enough neither bulb burned out but as soon as I swapped the clear bulbs that were in there for the amber ones I had one burn out almost immediately. I replaced it and haven't had a problem since. I notice a lot of GM vehicles with their DRL's burnt out. I wonder if there is too much voltage being fed to the bulbs causing the weaker ones to fail. Just a theory but who knows.....

[BLLDOGG]

DRL's are probably the most common because they are on the most ;) too much voltage is a possibilty.

[Mr.T]

If I put a smaller fuse in do you think it would help?

[Perry]

Originally posted by Mr.T:
Ok my driverside front blinker burned out so I replaced it and maybe an hour later it burned out again. Its the 3rd time Ive replaced it. Anyone know whats going on?

Make sure you buy a little packet of the bulb lubricant at Autozone so that you can make sure it is sealed correctly.

[fenderman]

Fuses don't regulate current flow. What I mean by that is that if you stick a 10 amp fuse on a 30 amp circuit, the circuit will still draw 30 amps. However, since a 10 amp fuse cannot handle that much current it will blow the fuse more often creating the need to purchase more fuses. I would leave the fuse alone.

One thought I had as to why the sockets look the way they do is because the blinker bulbs mount with the sockets at the top. Heat rises causing the sockets to melt slightly. If the bulb had mounted in from behind the lens like the other bulbs do I'm sure that this wouldn't be as much of a problem.

[jessica2112]

Yep, my 99 FB is a real bulb eater. It used to do it alot when it rained, my lenses were cracked. Fixed that and I still put one in a month it seems. [img]graemlins/twak.gif[/img]

[Mr.T]

well I put my regular bulbs back in so I would have a blinker and it hasnt burned out yet so its got to be something with the brighter bulbs....I guess they get too hot.

[BLLDOGG]

so you used brighter bulbs huh? that was you only problem. they were pulling too much amperage. in an auto class i was in, we had displays of things broken and what not...well, there was a bulb burnt to **** sitting there and he explained that it came off a ricer's honda. the kid was trying to put 115amp "bright" bulbs in a 45amp system. not good. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Mr.T]

They have the same number as the stock bulbs but they are super whites. My first set worked fine for a while and its just the driver side one that goes out.

[defrag]

my DRLs get water in them which in turn causes the bulb to crack, i havent had a right hand turn signal in god knows how long, i just gave up on replacing the damn thing