This 2002 Lexus RX300 came in with the complaint that the passenger side low beam headlight and the driver’s side driving/fog light did not work.
I located the fuse in the under hood fuse box.
Testing showed that the fuse was good and properly powered.
To access the wiring for the passenger side low beam headlight, I found it easier with the windshield washer reservoir fill tube removed. One bolt with a 10 mm head holds the fill tube in place.
With the bolt removed the fill tube will pull up and can be removed from the vehicle.
Now there is easy access to the low beam headlight bulb harness connector.
There is a thumb latch that has to be depressed to release the connector. The picture below is a little deceptive. Where my thumb is located is not where you would push down. Instead you would want to depress the end that is closer the the actual wires.
I check for power at both terminals and none was present. I went to the wiring diagrams to make sure that there was nothing except wiring in between the fuse and the headlight harness connector. There was not. The customer had stated the she had just gotten the vehicle back from the body shop where it had been for some front end damage. My assumption was that there was a broken wire. A closer look at the wiring diagrams revealed the answer and it was further confirmed with a visual inspection of the car. The diagram indicated that the red wire with a blue stripe was the power supply wire for the headlight bulb. The connector that I had been checking had a red wire but it had a black stripe. Also notice that the connector body is gray in color.
Looking over at the connector on the driver’s side low beam, I saw that the body color was brown.
Further inspection of the wiring for the passenger side headlight assembly found that there was a brown connector fastened to the lower bulb.
As it turns out the low beam headlight bulb and the driving/fog light both use the same bulb and therefore the same harness connector. Notice that the brown connector has a red/blue wire and the gray connector has a red/black wire.
Now the harnesses are properly connected to the appropriate bulb. If you look closely at the lamp assembly, there are color codes rings around the two bulbs to indicate which connector fits.
Now both low beams work at the same time.
I had to point this switch out to the customer. The inner ring that I am holding is the driving/fog light switch.
Now you can see that all lights work as they should. What initially seemed to be a complicated issue was just a simple fix. Had some one noted the color coded rings and harness connectors during reassembly, the problem never would have occurred.
Oh well, another one fixed.