S5 Light Riser Problem
 

I've got a '91 S5, and a problem. The lights one day just decided to stay up. As I tried to turn the manual knob to turn them down, the motor kicked in and kept them up. The electronic knob on the dash also does nothing.

I checked all of the fuses, all good. My solution was to remove the big riser fuse in the engine bay, manually turn them down. When night comes, pop it back in, and they automatically rise up.

I've been around NB Miatas for awhile now, and just switched to the fc...so I'm not exactly one with it yet. Just looking for some suggestions and tips.

-JB

there is a 2nd knob where you turn on your head lights that keep them up. try that one.

yeah, the knob on the drivers left hand side
above the big light knob, under the defroster knob.

Try it :)

The knob that these guys are referring to is the Light Cleaner Knob.It lets you Pop your Headlights up without having the Power go to the headlights(they won't Illuminate).The Thing about this Knob(located right ABOVE THE HEADLIGHT SWITCH) is that it gets Hit By Mistake sometimes,and it's the last thing you think of!...you then Think your headlight Retractor Motors are "on the fritz",because they won't go down..It cancels out the Switch on the Headlight Switch to put the Lights Into the Down position...Until you hit that switch.Then everything is 'Miraculously OK" again!..

im not dumb here, turning this knob does nothing. this is something electrical. I would like to get an idea of where the light motor relay is or any other fuses.

im going to check the wires at this knob to see if there is any dead connections that would cause it to stick.

bump

i seem to be having a very similar problem, only mine happened right when I hooked my battery up backwards (I'm a fuckhead, i know). Anyhoo, if you get this figured out, let me know what fixes it for you.

dude, that's what happened with me. the car died, my buddy hooked up the cable backwards...bam. now we just need to find out what we blew.

hmmmmmm......... my guess woULD BE TO CHECK THE FUSES, WIRES, SWITCHES, and MOTORS!!!!!!!! :icon_no2:

for everyone who needs this problem solved:

If you hook your battery up backwards and your lights stay up, Replacing the cpu fixes this damage.

Thread Update:


Sorry to bump an old thread, but I just wanted to give a shout out to this info... Even though I did not use it... After all my trouble, I finally find THIS thread AFTER I fix the issue.

But hey, I might have a new piece of info to this help... (Just wish I had pics to further help, sorry.)




Had the same problem, Previous owner hooked up battery backwards was all I knew about...
Well after reviewing the factory service manual, I decided to take the CPU out completely, headlights worked fine, just no horn, signals, etc and such.


I reinstalled it, one wire at a time. and found the culprit to the issue.

The LONG main plug on the FC01, it controls:
seatbelt buzzer, seatbelt buzzer timer, keyhole ignition light, and door keyhole lights.

I assume this is the case every time for this issue. if you dont mind giving up a buzz or light or two, you can reuse your existing FC01.


I dont know if this info is in another thread somewhere, but I feel like I spent *forever* trying any known search to "backwards battery, headlights wont go down / turn off"
So here is some keywords for this thread.

adding info too...

I had the same problem when I bought the car. The connections at the retractor fuse where corroded to shit, and fixing that solved the issue.