Dome Light Stays on With the Door Shut Diagnose Door Latches and Switches

Dude, does your dome light always stay on?

Yeah. It does that sometimes. Oh my God.

Hey, friends, it's Len here from 1A Auto. In today's video, I want to talk to you about some of the common reasons why your dome light inside your passenger compartment might not wanna turn on. Finally. Now, we all know what the dome light's supposed to do. Every time you open the door, whether it's get in or out of the car, it's supposed to turn on. Why is that? Well, of course, for courtesy. It turns on, so when you're getting in, you can see exactly where to put that key, even if it's dark outside. Or, of course, if you're getting out, it illuminates the car so people driving by, if you're parking on the side of the road, know that there's something going on. But why might it not turn off even after the door's shut? Well, sometimes on people's dashes, they're gonna have a little dimmer switch here. And, of course, if you go all the way up, that's not only gonna make it so your dash lights turn up, but it's also gonna make it so the dome light turns on.

And, of course, that's gonna be handy if you're trying to do something inside your car, but you don't want to have the door open. So, if your dome light's stuck on, just check that dimmer switch and make sure it's not on the dome light on position. Now, if that didn't fix your issue, the next thing that I wanna talk to you about is the dome light switch. Now, it's common for there to be different dome light switches. A lot of times you might have a push button switch. So, if you feel along your door jam, you might find that there's a button on some vehicles. Now, this one right here, I can go around the entire door jam and I don't feel a button anywhere. The next thing I would wanna do is check the door itself as well. I'm just gonna go like this, and I'm gonna try to feel for any type of button. It might look a little bit like this, but, of course, that's not it. I don't feel anything along this, and especially inside the door jam.

So, that tells me that this one doesn't actually have the door button. It must have an issue with a switch that's located inside the latch. The way that you can tell if you have a latch switch is if I was to come right inside here and I pull on this like this. That's gonna essentially tell the door that it's in the shut position. And that should also tell the dome light to go ahead and turn off. Now, whether you have the push button switch or even the door latch switch, if for some reason it isn't working or not making it so your dome light actually turns off, that's not telling you that you have an issue with wiring typically, that's telling you that you're having an issue with the interrupter that's part of the switch. Now, let's say that you go ahead and test it though. You come over to the push button and you press it in, the dome light turns off. Okay. That's a little weird.

Or maybe you don't have the push button. You come over to the latch. You put in your screwdriver along here, you latch it in, like as if it's in, the dome light turns off. Okay. It just wasn't working when I actually shut the door. Unbelievable. So, what would cause this? Well, something that you wanna think about is the condition of your door itself, or even the hinges because if the hinges aren't sitting properly and the door's just kind of hanging off-kilter and not really fitting in properly, obviously, the latch can't do its job. So, if the latch isn't completely latched in like this one right here, then, of course, it's not interrupting the circuit and it's not turning off your dome light. Why is that? Well, of course, for safety.

The reason why they do that is because if the door latch isn't functioning properly, maybe you can't hear this while you're driving down the road, you've got the music too loud, but you're more than likely gonna see that your light's still on. Checking door hinges by yourself is fairly easy. But if you have a buddy, somebody to help you out, it's a little bit easier. Because, of course, you're gonna want somebody right down here to grab onto the door, lift it up and down. If I want to, I could try to lean like this, lift it up and down and try to diagnose it myself. Yeah, I think I see some hinge movement, but, of course, if I had somebody else over there and I can get my head right in here, I can diagnose exactly what's going on with those hinges. Otherwise, you can tell if your door's out of alignment just by looking at the striker right here. This area that comes across this is called the striker. And that's where the latch is going to latch onto.

Speaking of the latch, you definitely want to inspect that as well. If you can see that it looks like there's rubbing damage, well, then, of course, that's telling you that that's been hitting up against the striker. If it's not fitting in there perfectly, you're gonna end up damaging the inside of your latch over time. Another way that I can tell that it's the hinges that is causing this issue is that if I take this, give it a nice slam, I fixed the dome light issue. Some cars might also have a switch that you just turn on, just like this. You push on the dome light lens there, and it turns it on. So, of course, if you were to leave that turned on, you're gonna have an issue. Other times you might find that you have a switch that goes side to side. Generally, it'll say off, on, or even door. This one just says off and door. But of course, if there wasn't on switch on it and you were to turn it on and leave it on, the dome lights are gonna be stuck on as well.

Okay, friends, so that's pretty much what I've got for you for common reasons why your dome light might stay on, especially while you're driving. But let's briefly touch on maybe the dome light doesn't work at all. Commonly, that's gonna come down to an electrical issue. So, the first thing that I would wanna do is check that bulb, look on the inside. If it looks like the filament's burnt, or even if the glass looks like it's black or discolored in any way, go ahead and replace that bulb. Let's assume that the bulb is good though. You checked it or even replaced it. It still doesn't work. The next thing I would wanna do if you have a power probe of any sort, you can go ahead and test the power at the circuit right up in there. If you have power there, well, then you know that it's still probably an issue with the bulb or even the connection points that connect onto the bulb.

But if you don't have power there, you're gonna have to keep searching. Commonly, there's gonna be a relay of some sort and, of course, there's more than likely gonna be a fuse because every electrical circuit has to have a fuse. It only really makes sense. Go ahead and check that fuse. That's more than likely burnt if for some reason your dome light isn't turning on. Aside from that, let's assume that that's all good. It could still come down to a switch issue, or even the fact that, like I said before, the door just isn't sitting right. But more commonly, if the door isn't sitting right or if it's a switch issue, it's probably just gonna be stuck on.

Okay. Well, I hope you liked the video, I hope you learned a little something. If you did and you wanna talk about it, leave it in the comment section below because I always love to hear from you. Of course, if you like the video or you love the video, please feel free to smash on that like button for me. It would mean the world. While you're at it, go ahead and subscribe, ring the bell that way there you can be kept up with all of our latest content. Thanks