98 Grand Am - DRL's will not come on

[ltz8703]

My '98 Grand Am GT's DRL's will not come on. all other low and high beams work well and are not burnt out. the high beam warning light keeps flashing as well. i checked the fuse on the door panel and it appears fine.

what else could be wrong?

Also, i'm getting the low coolant light coming on. i'll add Dexcool coolant (premixed 50/50) and the light goes out but will have to add a couple of days later. this seems to have happened only recently when the weather turned cooler.
thanks.

[3100]

I need to know some details before I try to diagnose this for you:
1. is your AC and Heater working?
2. do head lights come on by themselves at night?
3. are your fog lights working?

[ltz8703]

Yes, the heater and A/C work. I havent tried the headlights at night yet, i'll do that tonight. fog lamps work. i'm 95% sure about these and will reconfirm tonight.
Also, i think i have an issue with my coolant as the low coolant light comes on. everything seems fine and i havent over heated. thoughts?

[doctorhrdware]

With loosing coolant like you are could be the water pump or an intake manifold gasket leak. Do you see any coolant pooling on the engine or on the ground. It is also possible that the radiator may be leaking. On thing is the top radiator hose, is getting hard. Also do you smell antifreeze in the car, if you do the heater core is leaking.

[ltz8703]

Ok.
1. Heater and A/C work fine.
2. Headlights are coming on by themselves, even in daylight.
3. fog lights work.

for the coolant/coolant light - it was lit again when i left work, stayed on the whole ride. temp guage never went into the hot/red zone, always stayed right in the middle and the resivoir was at the cold fill line.

i have noticed pooling of what i suspect is coolant, but not recently. and no anitfreeze smell in the car.

thanks.

[3100]

Ok. I just checked diagram for your car, and according to your symptoms I would say it is ether your DRL relay or microprocessor inside of your IPC.

DRL rely you can find inside of the front impact bar, there you will see a lot of relays just fallow bunch of wires I am sure you will find it and it is the first one from the left when you are facing the engine is your DRL relay check if connections are tight and that you don't have any melted wires around the headlights or at the relay. Try to find the similar relay on the car that is not affecting your headlights and test it. Remember if your park brake is on, you will not have DRL, also if the trans is in park you will not have DRL.

It would also help if you can tell us how did this happen, did you have some frontal impact, did someone play with wires etc.... if any work has been done on your car that you can relate it to this problem...let us know.


also try this have someone in the car parking brake released and shifted into D and service brake depressed during day time so that DRL should be on, then find that DRL relay do not disconnect it but back probe with DVOM terminal 87 and 30 (red on 87 and black on 30) then come back here and tell me what voltage if eny you red, then while the relay is connected use jumper wire and jump terminal 86 of the DRL relay to ground. Remember have someone in the car during day time, emergency brake released transmission in D and service brake pressed while you do this. And tell me if the DRL came on. If yes then it is possible that the microprocessor in your IPC is bad and is not grounding ckt 592. (lt green/blk wire)

[ltz8703]

Thanks...I'll check on the DRL relay. and try the other option too, if i have a volt meter.

This happened suddenly, this past Saturday. I'm pretty keen on seeing the dash lights come on and never saw this before Saturday. No recent accidents, though we did have a frontal (driver side) impact about 3 yrs ago, but never had this issue. I'm hoping its the relay.

Thanks again for the info and I'll keep you posted.

[xeroinfinity]

Welcome to AF ltz8703 !

Sounds like your DRL relay is shot, from the symptoms you desribed above.

On the coolant issue, like mention above, if it's not leaking on the ground or in the cabin area, then you probly have an internal leak.