My 996 license lights haven't worked since I bought the car last year.

checked the bulbs - OK

checked the fuse -OK

checked that the dash pod lights on the same circuit worked -OK.

I figured that the harness for the license lights was unplugged -nope, it was OK also.

A voltage check at the connector before the license light harness reads 3 volts, MOL.

Since the harness feeding the license light in the engine bay was kinked, I figured that maybe a wire was broken. Opened up the harness cover and the wires look fine.

Now what?

I've seen some posts that a bad headlight switch might cause this, but why are the dash pod lights working and not the license lights? I already did the "contact cleaner fix" earlier on the light switch, and it cured the headlights not coming on.

Any other ideas?

Also, on the fuse block for position row A #5 that feeds this circuit, which end of the fuse (top or bottom) is the hot / before the fuse itself?

 

Licence Plate Light are Notorious for being Corroded and not working. I have had both of mine my Replaced Twice Under Warranty and once out of Warranty. All 3 times it bacially Corroded and fell apart. My car is a DD. Mind you that Part was Designed back in the 80's and has not changed since lols...

 

Have you tried contact cleaner at the bulb socket?

If you are getting voltage at the connector before the license plate light harness, the logical thought is there is an issue in the license plate light harness. Especially if you aren't getting voltage at the bulb sockets when the license plate harness is plugged it.

My .02.

FLi

 

Thanks for the replies, but the problem is upstream of the license lights and associated mini harness.

I tested the license lights and the light harness on the bumper with a 12vdc power source and they work fine.

I'm getting voltage, but it's only 2.8 volts, at the terminal before the license light harness. Any other ideas of where I might check for known trouble sources?

 

While I had the dash pod off to clean the lenses and replace a missing screws, I noticed that someone had clipped the gray wire (that feeds the dash pod lights) and installed a new wire from the fuse box to the gray wire in the green terminal on the back of the instruments. Sooooo....now I know why the dash pod lights worked even though the license lights are on the same fuse.

Then I pulled the light switch out and jumpered terminal #30 (hot) to #56 (to license lights and dash pod fuse), and I'm getting juice to the fuse, but still no license lights.

So it looks like the problem is down stream from the fuse box. I was looking at the factory wiring diagram on sheet 2. It looks like the license light feed goes from the fuse box to something called "BS 10/1, TERM. 58" and "35, TERM. 58". What are these and where are they located in the car?

 

I ended up feeding power to the license light housing by running a jumper wire from the drivers side running light circuit wire. The fault in my circuit was somewhere between the rear seat area wiring harness terminal block back to the license light housing, I honestly didn't have time to disassemble the rear seat area interior area to trace the wire all the way back. A dealer mechanic told me they repair circuits like this more often than people realize.