JL LED Lighting Group issues

[Chip O'tle]

Hi Everyone,

Have a question about the stop/blinker lights in the LED light group. My wife drives a 2020 JL Unlimited Sahara True North Edition and we haven't had one issue with the car since we bought in new 2 years ago. It's her daily driver and once we crossed 36,000 mile we started getting intermittent notices on the dash that the turn signal on the passenger side rear lamp is out. Then it would be intermittent for the passenger side would be out. This has gone on for a few months... Just yesterday, both the rear signal/brake lights are out permanently. The dealer says there have been issues and they would warranty it, but cant see us for a couple of weeks because they are so busy. My question is, since this seems to be an electrical issue, does anyone have experience with this and let me know what the fix is? I don't want my wife to drive with no rear blinkers or break lights except the CHMSL any longer than she has to...

Any help would be appreciated! Also, I haven't seen any posts on here that discuss this issue, so I assume its not that common.

I love reading threads here and this is the first one I am putting up. I look forward to the replies...

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[RubiBlueJLU]

My 2021 JLURD is at this moment in the service department being looked at. Drivers side rear LED brake and blinker out.
Their initial scan said open ground on right rear, go figure. At least it is a warranty thing.
Will see what the tech comes back and says is the issue.
Caught mine by accident, as I have the fault wire disconnected. We tow it behind out Rv a lot. Jeeps the battery from going dead when towing. (a whole different thread)

I’ll let you know what they say.

 

[RubiBlueJLU]

So, it came back.
Code read b1642 rr tail lamp short to ground. He unplugged my towing wiring harness (for being towed), replugged lights and all good. Reattached the towing wiring harness and all still good.
Appears the plug grounded out at some point. All good now.
Service manager ran it as warranty, so no charge to me.

You might want to pull the tail lights, unplug and replug, and see what happens. I have read (here) that moisture in the connection is an issue, too.

Good luck.

 

[RubiBlueJLU]

Better explanation:

Follow up:

Initial scan, by service manager, come back with "open ground on right rear tail light". Funny, since the left rear is the one not working. It goes off to tech 10 minutes later.

Jeep came back from Tech after 1-1/2 hours. Was outside, walking, when he pulled it back in. Brake/blinker now works. BTW, grey "fault" wires to tail lights are disconnected (for towing).

From the Tech's writeup:

"verified concern. both left and right brake lights and turn signals did not function
scanned for code and had b1642 r tail lamp short to ground, and Ir tail lamp short
to ground. visual inspection showed an aftermarket trailer hitch wiring so this
vehicle can be towed and still have brake lights functioning. removed the left and
right tail lamp assemblies to test for a possible short to ground. removed
aftermarket jumpers to tail lights and installed directly into vehicle harness. both
lights operated as intended and codes went stored. reintsalled aftermarket jumpers
to tail lamps and all lights started functioning again. suspect an issue with the
aftermarket wiring or module installed. cleared codes. all currently working"

We discussed the aftermarket wiring for towing. No diodes, no splices. Pass through for towing. Discussed possibility that the connector grounded out, up front. Could be a chaffed wire. I will check.

He told me the "blinker out" warning would go away after about 20 cycles.
I told him it would not. The grey "fault" wire to the tail lights is unhooked, for towing behind RV.
He looked puzzled, and gave me a funny look. (guess he didn't catch that in his "testing")
Tried to explain it to him, dead battery issue and all, but it went in one ear and out the other.
"Maybe you should hook them back up" was his response.

Tail/brake/blinkers work again. I will watch for any more issues. Maybe go back and add in a switch to disconnect the fault wires for towing, like the Cool-Tech harness does now. Switch was added to solve the dead battery after towing issue.

At least I got out for free! Service manager wrote it up a warranty.

Mike

 

[Chip O'tle]

RubiblueJLU thanks for the responses.

The dealer just fixed me up and we are all good now. The problem was the wire harness for the hitch. When we bought the JLUNE, we had the dealer add the hitch. So when, the tech narrowed the issue down to the wire harness they installed had failed and started giving us issues of the break light/blinkers going out in the tail lights. They replaced it and sent us on our way. Glad to get it warrantied too.

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