I have a '99 Cavalier that's been mostly parked for the past year. It got taken out about once every four weeks, so it hasn't just been sitting undriven for a year, but it's probably only had 150 miles or so put on it since September 2007.
I took it out today with the intention of beginning to drive it regularly again, and a few new things happened. First, the reading lamps on the rearview mirror turned on almost immediately- it was daytime and I don't know precisely when, but sometime between me getting in the car and pulling out of the driveway, they were on. No matter which direction I flipped the switches, they wouldn't turn off. I played with the switches for a while, and eventually found a position for them that kept the reading lights off.
When I came back and turned off the car, however, the passenger side interior door light stayed on. Normally both lights come on for about 15 seconds, but this time the driver's side light didn't come on at all, while the passenger side lamp wouldn't turn off. I spent about an hour looking for information about the problem and reading the manual, and when I went back outside, it was still on. At one point, I went out and pushed my hand hard against the light and it turned off, but when I closed the door it came back on, the way the light always does when you close the door, and again wouldn't go off. After that, nothing I did would make it go off again.
I finally gave up and just removed the INT LAMP fuse, which controls both the reading lamps and the door lamps, as well as a host of other important things (radio, remote entry, etc), so it wouldn't be on all night draining the battery. That did make the light go off, obviously.
As it stands right now, I have no idea what the problem is, how to diagnose it properly, or what I can do to fix it. This wasn't a problem a year ago, when I last drove the car regularly, and as far as I'm aware, it hasn't been a problem in the past year, as it's a pretty noticeable one. So I'm not sure what's going on. Can you help?
Thanks!
--d