Jump to content

Welcome to TheMalibuCrew!

As a guest, you are welcome to poke around and view the majority of the content that we have to offer, but in order to post, search, contact members, and get full use out of the website you will need to Register for an Account. It's free and it's easy, so don't hesitate to join the TheMalibuCrew Family today!

Trailer Light Problem


Recommended Posts

Discovered my trailer lights are acting weird. At first they were totally dead/off. No running lights, brake lights, turn signals. Later after recovering the boat from the lake they all came on. I thought things were good until I discovered the turn signals, left or right weren't working. Both lights are on but won't blink -- they blinked on my truck.... If it was a bad fuse wouldn't the lights be off? Any ideas?

Link to comment

Bad bulbs maybe, where the blinker filaments blew but not the other filaments? Had kind of the same issue on my '10 BM trailer. One light worked fine and the other barely (4 of 12 LEDs) . I found out it was a single wire coming from the harness inside of the swing away portion of the tongue near the master cylinder. Guess there was too much resistance to light but only one tail light. Ended up cutting off the crimp on connector and soldering it together, works like a champ now.

Link to comment

Are you running incandescents? Or LEDs?

First thing I'd always check is that the truck lights are working right. Get a cheap test light & whenever the issue starts, pull the plug & test the outlet itself. If the truck tests OK, then I'd look for a wiring connection problem or some obvious wire chafing problem, usually around the tongue or where the wires poke thru a hole near the lights themselves. Sounds like a grounding problem. And since it's both sides, I'd guess it's near the tongue.

Link to comment

Discovered my trailer lights are acting weird. At first they were totally dead/off. No running lights, brake lights, turn signals. Later after recovering the boat from the lake they all came on. I thought things were good until I discovered the turn signals, left or right weren't working. Both lights are on but won't blink -- they blinked on my truck.... If it was a bad fuse wouldn't the lights be off? Any ideas?

Check to make sure that the trailer ball and coupler are clean, my trailer grounds to the truck thru the ball and safefty cables. Take the cables off and the lights do the weird things you describe.

Link to comment

Last time I had trailer issues I hooked up a tester to the female coupler on the truck and tested whether everything on the trucks side is working, basically rule out fuse issue.

then moved to trailer.......... first thing to look at is your ground, by the sounds of it i would say that is your issue.

Link to comment

My lights started off not working very good the first few times I pulled my boat this year. I would turn on running lights when towing so the side markers would light up when I tow, and would constantly see them blinking intermittently when in tow and while stopped at a red light. It had to do with my hit h on the ball of my truck (ground), last year for some reason I had decided to coat the inside of the hitch with lithium grease to help get it on and off the ball easier, but had put it on to thick I guess, now that most is gone the lights are working fine. I had already checked my truck fuses (inside cab and ones under hood where tow fuses where) and they were all good and had pulled another trailer a day before that lights worked on it.

You could always try a buddies truck real quick to see if it is your truck or ground.

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...