tail light fuse has blown 5 times in a row!

[sn@ke3ater]

A few weeks ago, my tail light fuse blew out. then last night it blew again. then today it blew a third time. I had some spare 15s in my glove box and this time every time I put a new fuse in, it blew out immediately. I went through 5 fuses to try and get it to work but nothing.

I understand that this means I have a shorted wire somewhere. does anyone have any idea how to find it and fix it?

thanks.

 

[Amiguel6]

Trace the wires. Get a voltage reader and check

 

[TheSkygun]

start at the tail light and see if any there are short, then at the fuse box.

 

[TheIVJackal]

Yep, like they said already, going to have to try and find where the open in the wire is. I can't think of the routing of the wire but from my experience, wires get damaged in places where they move. So if the wiring goes through the trunk-lid, since the trunk opens, I would look there first. Good Luck!
- Aaron

 

[sn@ke3ater]

I checked it out and found one of my tail lights was blown out. could this have been the problem?

 

[TheIVJackal]

Well, did it fix the problem?

 

[djzachtyler]

a blown light could be part of your problem, but finding out what cased it to blow is the root of your problem.

Tails on the DA are standard incandescent bulbs... meaning unlike a bad HID ballast where it can blow the fuse, the bulb is in it's own way similar to the fuse. Once the bulb is blown the circuit is broken and power is essentially cut off.

a fuse being blown in a broken circuit means you likely have a short somewhere on the power ( or positive side) of said circuit.

you need to trace the short or see what wire carrying power has exposed wire... The DA/DB cars are up there in age and it isn't outside the realm of reason that you possibly have a wire with cracked or brittle insulation.

Replacing the bulb may work as a bandaid unil the short blows it again.