2000 Buick Century low beams

low beams wont go on

It is typical for people to drive around with one low beam out and not notice it. Then when the second on goes, you notice the complete lack of light. If you have a test light or volt meter see if you are getting juice at the light. If you don’t have either just try replacing the bulbs.

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That’s what I thought too, when both my 2000 Buick Century low beams would only work intermittently, that I wasn’t getting power to the lights, but I checked, and I was getting power even though the lights didn’t work. In this car, the low beams are always powered, but the ground wire is switched not the hot wire. My problem was a faulty switch inside the multi function turn signal lever, that switched between low and high beams. I was able to buy this switch on Amazon and change it out myself. The steering wheel had to be pulled but rather than make or buy a puller for this car, it uses hooks rather than studs, I was able to wiggle and thump on the wheel and it came lose without much effort. I saw guys do this on youtube. Not the professional way to do it, so I would recommend obtaining the proper steering wheel puller. I didn’t want to spend the time trying to obtain the proper one. I tried making one, but the 2 hooks wouldn’t fit in the pulling slots.

Another problem I had later with the low beams was that the left beam was intermittent. I found that the gang disconnect socket for all the wires going to the left headlight assembly which includes high beam, & turn signal lamp, had an individual female socket for the low beam headlamp, orange and black wire, that was broken and the pin that mates into it would make intermittent contact. Rather than try to buy the whole socket, new or used, and have to splice each wire to it, I was able to take a short individual strand of copper wire from stranded 12 guage electrical wire and bend it into a tiny oval shaped loop, and slide it into the broken individual socket for the low beam. This little shim kept the pin for the low beam on a bind, yet able to enter into the socket, fitting nice and tight. My low beams haven’t failed ever since.

NIce work - vernacular engineering is one term that fits. Also “to cobble something together.” I admire it. Thanks for letting us know.

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Thanks for your reply, shanonia, hopefully others will be able to keep any loose connections “gudenteit” like this without having to buy whole
new large connectors due to just one little flaw…