97 JGC,Interior lights have mind of their own

[sbrath]

I have 97 JGC Limited, and recently it has been having problems.

I just replaced the rear hatch latch and after replacing it the light's have grown a life of their own.

What I mean is that the vehicle will be sitting in the driveway, and all of a sudden the interior lights will all come on, and stay on for a while.

I've never sat and waited to see if they turned themself off yet, but I've woken up to a dead battery almost every other day now.

So ideas on what to check?

When I replaced the tailgate latch there was a little "thing" screwed to the latch, and it had a plug to hook up to wiring. What was that thing for? When I ordered the replacement latch from my dealer, it didn't come with that part. I had to take the old one from my broken latch and put it in the new one. The latch is real good now, but the lights keep killing the battery.


Sugestions on what to check?

Thanks.

[ggreer98]

I have the same problem with my 98 JGC and I had my tailgate hatch replaced by a body shop. My interior lights come on when I am driving as well causing the automatic doorlocks to relock the door. I took it back to the shop they said nothing wrong but when I told them about the doorlock they said they had a similar problem with a Ford Explorer and it was cause by the remote, the remote you use to lock and unlock your car. They removed the battery from my remote and the problem stopped. They suggested I replace the battery and if problem persists to go to the dealer.
Go figure

[joroman]

I have the same problem with a 97 Grand Cherokee. The interior lights and power door locks will randomly switch off and on. I ended up puling the relays for the locks and lights so the battery wouldn't die. It seemed to be triggered more frequently when the vehicle rocked side to side as when cornering or going over bumps. Coincidently this started a few days after fixing the rear hatch release (taking the panel off and lubing the moving parts). I'm looking for a wiriing diagram to find common links.

The the keyless remote sounds like a possibility. I can reproduce the problem easy enough to test this.

[joroman]

I removed the battery from the keyless entry but that didn't solve the problem. Still looking for a good wiring diagram.

[joroman]

Problem fixed!

The problem for this was the door switch for the right rear passenger door.

If I pushed the door from the outside it would apply enough pressure against the switch to turn the interior lights off. Not sure how this was effecting the door locks but it was. I took the switch out, cleaned the contacts, sprayed contact cleaner, but this didn't fix it so I put a small rubber bumper on the inside of the door which provides enough to close (or open) the switch. It's been good for a month now so I'll replace the switch.