I have a 2007 Jeep Liberty that was working fine. I went on vacation for about a month (left my car in my garage), and the first time I took my car out at night, I was shocked to find that my headlights had quit working. I determined that I DO have high beams (luckily), but BOTH low beams are dead. Is this just a bulb problem? Perhaps a fuse (as a friend suggested), or is it something more serious.
cheapest step one, check the fuses yourself. The owners manual tells you which fuse is which. Or you can tell just by looking at each fuse as you pull it out and put it back in if it’s good.
Find a bad fuse , replace it. Biggest question then, why did the fuse blow ?
Next cheaper step two, replace both bulbs. Rare but possible to burn out both at once.
After that, things need checked by a tech. circuits, relays, switch etc are harder to self-prove and too expensive to guess at.
Thanks for the quick reply. I am going to check the fuses, but each low beam is on a separate fuse (#5 and #27) (I have the online version of the owner’s manual). If it is the fuses, it would concern me, but perhaps it is because the car was sitting for 33 days? Perhaps both bulbs burning out simultaneously is more likely. I’ll let you know what I find.
Time can allow corrosion on terminals such as switch and plug contacts but I wouldn’t think 33 days would do that. ( I have a 79 chevy pickup that sits for moths at a time and every thing works exept the CB radio pots. )
Each suspect plug can be un-plugged then re-plugged in hopes of regenerating the contact within. If corrosion is visible, clean then replug. ( add on fog lights stopped working. Wiggled, just wiggled the in-line splice and , zzzt, on they came.)
Here’s an update. I checked the fuses - they seemed OK. I was then running some errands and suddenly noticed that my horn wasn’t working. Then I found that my power windows had quit working (they had been OK earlier in the day and yesterday). I took the car to a Long Beach Dodge/Jeep dealer about 3 hours ago. They just called and said the car was no longer displaying any of those symptoms, although there were definitely problems when I arrived there. They’ve done a number of tests and can’t locate any issues, but are keeping it overnight so they can check it further tomorrow. Luckily, I’m still in the 3 year / 36000 mile manufacturer’s warranty period, so it’s “no charge” (ironic…). I bought the car used from an Enterprise Rental car location and haven’t had a single problem with the car in the 9 months I’ve owned it. Could it be a computer problem?
It sounds to me like there’s an electrical gremlin somewhere. The pain here is that, on occasion, these kinds of issues can appear and disappear seemingly at random, which makes them a real bear to track down and fix. At this point all you can hope for is that it starts showing some problems while at the dealer, which will allow them to try and diagnose it.
That’s pretty much what they said at the dealer/service center. I’m most concerned about having something more significant happen while I’m driving (although having no low beams isn’t pretty). We’ll see if they find anything tomorrow.