2000 Ford Explorer Sport Headlights constantly on and won't turn off | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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2000 Ford Explorer Sport Headlights constantly on and won't turn off

Joined
July 28, 2019
Messages
10
Reaction score
1
City, State
Suffolk County, NY
Year, Model & Trim Level
2000 Ford Explorer Sport
I have a 2000 Ford Explorer Sport with 215k Miles on it. Recently I've run into an issue where the headlights are on all the time, during day and night, and will not turn off. The switch on the left of the steering wheel is set to off, the autolamp slider on the rear view mirror is all the way to the left, yet, once the car is started the headlights turn on. Further, I have to play with the slider to get the headlights to shut off, and if the car is running it'll turn right back on. They don't turn off except after a while after the car is shut off, and I have to play with the slider to get it to shut off otherwise.

I've seen there are a couple of threads on this, but they havent been able to help me with my problem. Anyone have any ideas?
 






Since the lights turn off with ignition off, that eliminates the relay as a culprit. My guess is a defective autolamp control - especially since playing with the slider finally turns them off. Don't know if that part is available separately, or just as a mirror assembly. By the way, any chance the ambient light sensor is blocked by something stuck to the windshield?
 






It's probably at least the slider. You could try spraying some contact cleaner in, but I don't know if it will be a problem with the mirror reflective coating. Safer would be to disassemble it and see if it's just hardened grease, or plastic worn out, or something worse, and of course replace it if you can't repair it, or just give up on having autolamps and alter the circuit somewhere.

I am not certain, but you might be able to disable the mirror slider by grounding a pink/black wire... but again I'm not certain, I could have it backwards and that keeps the headlights on while leaving the wire disconnected from the mirror takes it out of the circuit.

Then there is the sensor, is that built into the mirror? Seems like it would have to have a problem too for the lights to be on in the daytime.
 






The problem is of course in the mirror itself and probably easier replaced by a used one from Ebay or a local yard. To get by for now it's real easy to just unclip (disconnect) the entire black color wire connector on the back of the mirror. The headlight switch will operate without the auto headlight portion which most likely causing them to falsely stay on.
 






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