Melted Tail Lights

[FlyBoy]

I came out of my gf's parents house yesterday to find that my signal lights stayed on when I armed the alarm a couple hours before. This melted the plastic divider between the signal and brake sections onto the bulb and both shattered when it cooled. I think I will need new tail lights because the signal bulbs probably won't go back in, but I will pull the assembly out tomorrow to make sure.

Is this common? I showed it to the service guy at NL when I bought the bulbs, he said he hadn't seen it before. I do have the "new" hazard relay.

Thoughts?

[Kor]

Re: Melted Tail Lights

Never heard of this happening ever before.

- Were they original OEM tail lights?
- Were they the right bulbs?
- Do you mean an aftermarket security system?

[stefan]

Re: Melted Tail Lights

i had this happen to a side marker because the bulb wasn't seated right, and was either too close, or touching the plastic. Is this possible?

[Khyron]

Re: Melted Tail Lights

My aftermarket ones melted as they just used a red plastic cap to cover the bulb - much closer than the stock tails. Been waiting for hella smoked replacements since Dec. The damage looked like someone went ape with a soldering iron, so definately could see a misaligned bulb wrecking the stockers.

Khyron

[FlyBoy]

Re: Melted Tail Lights

They are the OEM tail lights with the original bulbs. Last time I was in there was the change a brake or running light last summer.

Factory security system.

The problem seems to be that the signal light came on and stayed on instead of blinking, which the bulb is not meant to do. My first thought was a problem with the hazard relay, but I went back through me records to confirm the recall was performed and the new one is in there. Maybe there will be another recall on it...

[dubjetta]

Re: Melted Tail Lights

I had this problem on my '01 Jetta. Melted the tail light around the turn signal bulb and sidemarker lense. I noticed that the left side turn signals would stay on when I locked the car, and i'd have to hit lock again for them to turn off. SCFC told me there wasn't much they could do without checking all the wiring. Since it was happening less than 1% of the time I never got it fixed and just made sure that the lights didnt stay on when I locked it.

[FlyBoy]

Re: Melted Tail Lights

Update, took a die grinder and cut the melted portion of the inner lens out. Here's a pic of what it looked like. The white piece over the glob is glass from the bulb that melted into the plastic.