Headlight issue, Anyone else see this before?
 

So this has been an issue for a few years now. Im just that lazy, but anyways. The pop up headlights on my car are tempermental. Primarily the pass side one, but occasionally the drivers side headlight will not stay down or up when the lights are turned on or off. Instead, whichever side is having the issue that day will continue to cycle up and down repeatedly. Sometimes this will last once or twice, other times it will last close to a minute, but never a terribly long time. There is no discernible pattern as to when or how long they will do this. Sometime I will even go months without a single issue.

I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on this before I :fael: things.

I'd say it wasn't working right. Fix it. How's that for helpful?

^ nopropsforu! :loser:

Inside the headlight motors are limit-switches which detect when the headlight has reached the commanded position, and shut off the power to the motor.

If this switch is physically sticking in one position or the other, it will cause the headlight motor to run continuously.

Since only one headlight does this at a time, that kind of points at the headlight motors themselves rather than the upstream relay.

I'm afraid I can't find any servicing instructions for this either.

If it's intermittent, I'd check grounds and power connections. Beyond that, I couldn't find anything in a casual search.


Edit: just had a thought. Check the switch in the tombstone. There may be a loose wire there.

One of my headlights used to do that. It was the motor so I just bought a used motor and swapped it out. A guy in the local miata club was an electrical school teacher and he asked if he could have a look at the old motor. I gave it to him and he was able to fix it by putting a resistor or something in one of the electric wires. This was ... 10 years ago so I'm a little foggy on it.

Would cause non-operation, not continuous operation.

Would affect both headlights at the same time. Ditto the relay.

It wouldnt surprise me if this were the case, I just wanted to see if anyone else had seen this, or found a fix for it before I go looking for a new motor.

I played with a motor on a front end damaged miata where the headlights wouldn't stay down. You might wanna check the stops, to see if it's hitting those before the motor stops. It might be worth checking the linkage as well.