Posting for the first time. Have read a bit and found very valuable hints and tricks on other topics, Hoping someone can help me. My headlights on my '04 Xbox decide to turn themselves on when the weather gets very cold. This already happened approximately 2 months ago and I thought maybe some sort of low battery warning system. Checked and replaced the battery. Was fine for a couple of months. Just started again. Woke up this morning and the car was dead as a door nail. Is anyone else experiencing this? What could it be? Any thoughts or ideas? Everything is stock on it except the cold air intake.

 

Wait... your headlights turn themselves on? Or do you have a random drain or short somewhere?

 

humm i used to live in kc and was pretty cold at times and never had my lights turn on.now thats crazy!!i did start my car and let it warm up every few days so that its not just sitting in my driveway..i know if i left it go to long it would take a while to start up but other than that no issues.

 

Sorry in advance for the long reply. Yesterday, I drove to work in a snowstorm in Indiana at 8ish AM. I turned off the lights, engine and locked the doors. ( my daily routine). At about 6PM, a co-worker thought I had started my car to warm it up. I told him I had not. That's when he informed me that my lights were on. I went to my car and it was locked and the light switch was in the off position, even though the headlights were on. i was able to remote open the door and started the car. It ran sluggishly initially, but within a few moments it was idling normally. Once the motor was running, the lights went off. I manually turned the lights on to drive home without incident, no dimming of headlights, etc. Woke up this morning, dead as a door nail. Light switch in the off position. Put the charger on and as it was charging, the headlights came back on. The lights went off after a few minutes of charging. The same thing happened approximately 1-2 months ago.

 

I suspect I have a short somewhere. While charging the car this morning. (yep, Again) the headlights came back on. I don't have day running lights on this car BTW. Anyways, Because of the sluggish running the other day. I started wiggling the wire harness of the MAF, the headlights started flickering on and off. I did it again until the lights turned off completely. Question then...Does the MAF and headlights share a circuit or ground or something? I am not that versed in translating wiring diagrams.

 

without looking at the diagram myself i couldn't say.

sounds more like you have a intermittent short to power inside your headlight switch. thats the only thing i can think of.

 

... how easy or uneasy would it be to check or test a headlight switch? I have a test light and a multimeter but I don't have a clue about the values I am looking for.

 

The headlights work off of a ground loop, and they even go through the fog lights. On the xB 1st gen assuming the A is the same. You may just have a wire in the circuit grounded someplace up front.

Few questions. Do you have fog lights and is it the high beam lights or the headlights that come on by them selfs?

When they do come on by them self, do nothing more then switch the dimmer and get back in here and tell us if they go off, change or what ever.

 

I do have stock fog lights. Only the regular headlights come on, not the high beams. The first time I saw them on, I visually checked the headlight switch/ stalk on the steering wheel and saw it was in the off position. I turned it on and then off to see if it made a difference and it did not. I am assuming it's the headlights and not the high beams because the blue high beam light on the dash was off and the stalk/switch was not pushed forward on the steering wheel.

 

If a wire is grounded, that means it is loose and touching the chassis somewhere? Or could it be something else? Just to have an idea what to look for during a visual inspection.

 

OK. So we know its the low beams when the switch is off.

What position is your fog light switch in when you regular lights are on but off at the stalk/switch? When they are on by them self, switch the brights on and see if they actually go to high beams or everything turns off. Also try it with the fog light switched changed, from off to on what ever. And are your dash lights, and marker lights on also or is this only low beam head lights?

Before you look for wires shorted out. And yes it means any wire not completing its design path. Like an opening in the plastic insulation touching another wire or ground. Do these few things to save some searching. The fog lights don't function without power to the system. As in the key switch set to on. So knowing some of this may help figure out where to start looking.

 

JUst out of curiosity, have you tried replacing the relay? There is generally another one the exact same in the car, possibly the horn?

This is definetly an interesting issue. Try checking the last electrical thing you installed as well.

 

Driver_lost - I keep the fog light switch on all the time. The fog lights only come on with the headlights. I haven't attempted the turning them on / off and blinking the high beams on and off exercise yet. I will attempt to do so this evening after work. While performing the exercises, I will make sure and observe the additional items, such as the side markers and dash lights. I don't recall seeing any dash activity at all because the key wasn't even in the ignition when I discovered the initial condition until I was ready to turn the engine over after charging the battery back up.

Since I "wiggled" the MAF wire harness and the headlights turned off 2 days ago, all while the battery was charging, I haven't experienced this headlight turning on situation nor dead battery. I haven't wanted to do anything until this weekend for fear of being stuck out in single digit weather with a dead car. I will attempt to recreate the condition this evening. this will give me the weekend to repair / replace / correct whatever is causing this.

To 3min3m2 - I have not attempted to replace anything yet. I might have to this weekend though. You also reminded me of something. Two summers ago I kissed the retaining barrier going over an overpass on the freeway in bad weather. The passenger front got hit. Had to replace the headlight, quarter panel etc on that side. The work was all done at a Scion dealer in Ohio. It's a place to start looking for errant wires or pinched or something.

Please keep the ideas and thoughts coming. I appreciate all of them.

 

considering the fact that you haven't had any issues since you wiggled the wires, it fits the bill of a loose wire/connection.

Good luck finding it, I'm not sure of your skill level but they are still hard to find and fix

 

Getting the problem to happen when trouble shooting is not always easy. You may want to grab a 10mm wrench to pull the ground off the battery when you park.

 

one of these would be better then disconnecting the neg cable off the battery

 

just got home from work. Went through a car wash on the way to remove all the salt and grime. Thinking of removing the front bumper, like the instructions say in a sticky here somewhere. This should give me greater access and better views. I'll post my progress throughout the evening and weekend as opportunities present themselves.

jct.. do auto parts stores carry that or is that from a specialty place, such as Summit or something. Also..what is the benefit of that piece.? Is it like a quick disconnect or something?

 

well...got the bumper off..great sticky on that BTW..kudos to the author. I believe it was itsdchz. anyways, once bumper was off, I began a visual inspection of the wires going to the headlights and fog lights..didn't see anything..but noticed that the horn wire going to the front of the radiator horn was loose and dangling against the radiator. I put the test light to it and the other end on the negative of the battery. The light came on...so I'm thinking I may have solved this issue, unfortunately, the wire broke off of its spade connector. I'll buy a spade and splice the wire unto it and put it back in the horn. I am going to continue looking around seeing how I have everything off the front anyways, in case there's something I missed. Still a little puzzled how the lights would come on though..

 

awesome...probably got off easy, but congrats!

 

definitely would help if you had a wiring diagram.

wiggle all wiring for the headlights and check for any damage, cross shorts. check all grounds and re torque.
it usually is something pretty simple.