'01 W210 Dome Light Woes

[MJNFL]

Hi Gang,

Once again I am at my wits end here, I need to start with a little background. First I want to make sure its understood this is a 4 door model and the front and rear dome lights work both together and independently according to the demand. When you unlock the car from the remote all the lights come on, when the care is running and you open one of the front doors only the front dome light should come on and when you open one of the rear doors only the rear dome should come on. Also when you turn off the car and remove the key both dome lights should come on.

Ok here we go, a few months ago I started noticing when I'd unlock my car via the remote and then get in and close my driver side door all the courtesy lights would fade out EXCEPT the rear dome light! Sometimes during the day even after driving for various amounts of time I'd happen to look in my rear view mirror and I'd notice the DAMNED LIGHT was on! Interestingly I could do one of 2 things to get the light to go out, I could either reopen my drivers side (front) door and shut it again, or I could hit the overhead rear dome light control button located by the sunroof switch. THIS IS CRAZY!!!

Now another tie in to this, A month ago I moved from beautiful sunny warm Florida to insanely cold Minneapolis. Well one night shortly after the move I happened to awaken to the lovely sound of my car alarm blaring. I ran to the window and I see the car is just fine except for one thing, guess what.. the damned rear dome light was on!!!! I'd let the alarm reset the light would go off and I'd think things were gonna be ok, couple hours or so later it would happen again! After a couple of nites of embarrassment I go out in -20 cold and start fidgeting with the door jam switches thinking ok dammit this has got to be the culprit. Well I went to both rear door switches and pushed them in as far as they would go and the light stayed on. I EVEN REMOVED BOTH SWITCHES and the light stayed on!!! After pulling the last hair off my head I said the hell with this and I removed even the front door switches and finally the light went off.

Well, that seemed to take care of the alarm issue, and I decided fine I will just drive around with no f$%#!^&g door jam switches in my car! Problem with that is you leave yourself vulnerable to break in's and also you can end up locking your keys in the car "due to the auto re-lock feature. SO.. I decided to experiment, I replaced the front drivers door jam switch, ONLY. I left the other three unplugged. Things seemed to be ok for a few days and then guess what... last nite I am driving along and I look in my rear view mirror and the f%^&(#g rear lite is on again! I hit the overhead button and it shut off.

I need help guys, this is insane, is there some damned control module that I can unplug or replace that controls the dome lights? And if so why is only the rear light malfunctioning? CLEARLY it has nothing to do with the door jam switches. My fear is there is a short somewhere that is making things unstable and of course that will never be tracked down "unless" there is indeed a module of some sort and the short is IN the module itself.

At this point all I can say is HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP