As the title suggests, my headlights keep going totally off at very inconvenient times - at night, driving home on a dark road. Less than two years ago, I had the headlight switch replaced - it was melted. I took it in last week and this time they replaced the combination switch and said "your headlights work". This concerned me a bit because 1) they couldn't tell me anything about finding anything wrong and 2) the headlights didn't NOT work before... And sure enough, I was driving home tonight and the same thing happened again. This is super dangerous, especially in inclement weather. Unfortunately I don't have the time or a lot of know-how to troubleshoot this myself. Any suggestions on what to tell them to look at this time?!

 

Sounds like a lot of resistance in the headlight circuit.

Get a supplemental plug and play harness. Takes the load off your switch.

http://cruiser54.com/?p=115

 

The harness is a great help and should be installed, but if you are still having cutout problems the likely cause is still at the dash switch. When the headlight switch burns up, it's harness connector is usually damaged too. Pull the dash headlight switch and check it's connector for burnt contacts. Whoever replaced the switch should have done that. Replacement connectors are readily available at most auto parts chain stores.

 

Interestingly on my TJ I had an issue with my high beams not working. Taking a look under the hood I found the wire had corroded and broken on one side. I fixed the wire and both high beams started working. It was a bit of a surprise that a bad wire on one side would take out both sides but it did.
I would take cruiser54 and comanche's advice and check/replace the connectors.

 

They were able to get me in yesterday when typically closed and this time they replaced the headlight switch. He said it was "very hot" when they took it out. I don't know why they wouldn't look further into that... if my last switched "melted" there's clearly an issue. I have aftermarket headlights that I didn't install - they were on the Jeep when I bought it - so I don't know if they upgraded the harness when they installed them. I'll check it out when I can.

 

The high beams work.. it was a matter of things going out intermittently. But I did find this suggestion on other threads. Thanks.

 

I have been dealing with intermittent low beam failures for some time and have been trying to troubleshoot the cause. Same switch (both dimmer and on/off switch) issue. Will replace connectors next.

hopeful you found your gremlin and will save me trouble.

 

this might just solve your issue.CRUISER'S MOSTLY RENIX TIPS

HEADLIGHT HARNESS UPGRADE

NOVEMBER 17, 2015 SALAD 63 COMMENTS

It’s easy to install a supplemental headlight harness.

From the factory, the voltage to the headlight bulbs travels from the battery, through connectors, inside the cabin, to the headlamp switch, and then back out to the lamps via undersized wire and more connectors. It’s not uncommon to find only 10.5 volts at the lamps.

The supplemental harness is installed so that it provides battery voltage to the lamps and is just triggered by the factory wiring. The result is about 35% brighter headlamps and headlight switches that don’t melt and burn out.



Ebay has the harnesses. 2 headlamp H4 with ceramic connectors is what you want. You’ll likely be warned that the harness won’t fit your Jeep. It will.

Absolutely plug and play:

• Remove grille and headlamp bulbs. I fed my harnesses from the passenger side starting between the battery and the back of the headlamp housing, over to the driver side.
• Plug the driver side bulb into the new harness.
• Attach the new harness’s ground wire under one of the small bolts on the radiator support after scraping the paint off under it.
• Attach the harness to the existing harness behind the grille working toward the passenger side.
• Plug the new harness plug into passenger headlamp.
• Plug original headlamp plug into receptacle on new harness.
• Attach the ground for the passenger side just like you did the driver side under a radiator support bolt.
• Attach relays with provided bracket on the passenger side inner fender.
• Connect power wires to battery.
• Revised 1-31-2016

 

X2 on doing the headlight harness. You most likely won't even need to fix the headlight switch, since it won't be handling any real power anymore. The bonus is a little brighter headlights since you won't have the voltage drop through the switch and undersized oem wiring..