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In a sense it is daylight robbery. Just when I thought I had found the solution to the no-start problem with my 1993 3.0 L MPV Mazda, it left my daughter stranded again. The background history of my no-start Mazda saga can be found on a previous blog and with the help of some very good advice from fellow seasoned members, I did find a poor connection in the wire at the positive battery clamp due to corrosion inside the crimp of the clamp. After changing the clamp, the vehicle worked well for a number of days until my daughter came out after school to find the vehicle dead. So I drove to the school and was able to get the car going by boosting it. Once I got the car home and charged the battery, I took some time to probe around the engine again. While I was poking around, I noticed the headlights were on. I checked in the vehicle to see if the headlight switch was in the on position and it wasn’t. After a while, the lights went out on their own. I’m thinking that what is happening is that when my daughter parks the car at school, the headlights come on after the car is turned off and drains the battery. I’m not familiar with how the daytime light system works on cars and particularly the Mazda but whatever module is involved, it seems to be malfunctioning. Is there anyone who has had experience with a problem like this? Your help will be much appreciated.
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Setting the parking brake is supposed to disable them. She is setting the brake when she parks, right? Set the brake and see if they come on. If they do, there could be a fault in the DRL module. If not, maybe they are operating normally. Pulling fuse #8 disables the DRL module also.
Thanks Cap269 for your advice. My daughter isn’t in the habit of setting the parking brake when she leaves the vehicle. I checked the operation of the DRL by starting the vehicle and applying the parking brake. The headlights did go out as expected. Now I have to decide whether to pull the DRL fuse or teach my daughter how to set the parking brake when she leaves the vehicle. (Or more importantly, how to take the brake off before she heads out again. I don’t have time to replace brake shoes unnecessarily!). Allowing the DRL to work during driving adds to the safety factor, so I’ll try this option first. Hopefully, this will be the final solution to the no-start problem I have been dealing with this vehicle. If things go well during the next week of driving, I’ll have to look at replacing the DRL module as a more permanent repair. I’ll post the results after a week of driving. Thanks again Cap 269 for your help.
Just to follow up on the battery draining issue with my Mazda. As it turns out, the Daytime Running light system isn’t causing the drain. It seems to have something to do with the turn signal mechanism. I happened to discover it by chance while fiddling with it. A slight movement of the signal tree would turn the lights on. I found that if I placed the signal tree in the forward, high beam, position, the lights would turn off and stay off. So for the time being, I have instructed my daughter to keep the signal tree in this position unless she is driving at night. Looks like I’ll be hunting for another signal mechanism at a wrecker in order to fix the problem permanently. Though I have pulled steering wheels before on older vehicles in order to replace signal mechanisms, I have never tackled one that has an air bag. I’ll have to do some research first in order to find out how to disable the air bag system. That might be a new repair posting topic. Thanks again.
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