98 Intrigue headlight/heater problem

Hello everyone, and thanks in advance for any help I might recieve. A few months ago I purchased a 98 Olds Intrigue with 120,000 miles on it. It has the 3.8L engine and auto trans, and power everything. When I first bought the car, the headlights would not turn on manually by the switch, but they would turn on automatically by the sensor. Once on, you could switch between hi/low with no problems.
Here lateley, the lights will come on as usual, but when driving down the road they will blink on and off, and sometimes just go out and not come back on. Also now when you turn the heat on, they go out every time.
I don't think it's the switch (stalk) because when i turn it on with the car not running, I get the warning bells as though I've left the lights on. (They do not come on)
The sensor appears to be working as when I cover it for a few secs the lights come on and go off when uncovered.
I spent today tearing apart the dash looking for the headlight relay, but i'm not sure if I found it. I found one that was clipped to the bcm, but I think that was for the abs.:banghead:
Anyway, if anyone has any suggestions, I would sure appreciate them as my girlfriend drives this car to work everyday in the dark and I need to figure this out asap.
Thanks in advance,
Root

check your main electrical connections. Sometimes battery grounds build up so much corrosion that the resistance causes loss of power and electrical systems go wacky. Clean off terminals and check the running voltage (should be between 12.5 and 14 volts...ideally 13.8v running and 12v when turned off)...the reason I am so suspicious of a main electrical problem is by default, when there is not enough power, the cars computer will turn off non-essential systems (when my altenator went, the radio went out, then the wipers, then the heat, followed by lights, followed by fuel pump...and that was the end of it)...if you got a bad connection, the same thing may be happening. Whats funny about bad battery connections is usually there is enough power to start the car up as normal..but as the heat/resistance bulds on the bad connection...the power starts to drop. Probly not a bad idea to do a code scan on the computer.

There is no headlight relay that I know of. The output for lo and hi beams comes directly out of the multifunction switch/dimmer to the respective lamps.

Based on your symptoms, your problems are consistent with a bad ignition switch.

The ignition switch can cause a lot of problems.

Thanks for your input! I was kind of thinking it could be a grounding issue or the ignition switch. I am not that familliar with computer controlled cars, and it p@sses me off when I can't fix something.I'll check the connections tomorrow and see if I can't borrow my buddy's scanner.As far as the switch goes, I hope it doesn't come to that because of the cost ant the effort to get it out!! Not like my old pickup where you could just reach under the dash and throw a screwdriver across the terminals to drive to the auto parts store and get a new one for $15.00. DAm I'm OLD!
Thanks again!
Root