Parking Lights and Dash come on

[holstin]

I am new to the Class "A." I have a 2010 Fleetwood Discovery. I moved up from a 5th wheel. Here is my question.

Periodically, my parking lights like to turn themselves on. It is happening while I am at a campground hooked up to shore power. It's not raining out, so I don't think there is a short of any kind from rain. Even my outside lights appear at times to come on and off.

Is there anything on this rig that could be charging and just need a place to discharge? If not, what can I look at? When I do notice them on because the lights on my dash are on also. I just toggle the switch a couple of times and they turn back off. I am not loosing power in the rig or anything because none of my clocks reset.

I am not near any kind of dealer for the next few weeks, so I am not able to take it in and have it looked at. It's not like they would find anything, anyway.

[tbutler]

Since all these mysterious events are related to the headlight switch, I would guess that replacing that switch will solve your problem. It sounds as if there is a short in the switch that is periodically arcing or connecting in some way to cause the lights to come on. Flipping the switch off and on breaks this short and the problem goes away. There could be other possibilities such as a wire somewhere in the dish that is shorting with another but it would affect only the dash lights or only the parking lights. The fact that it involves both of these suggests to me that the switch is the problem.

[chucknewman]

I agree with Tom's assessment. One other thing; since the coach is relatively new, you may have a spade connector on the switch that was bent during coach construction. Typically you will have several 12 gauge or 14 gauge wires attached to the light switch using a crimped, push on connector. It is not unusual for one connector to be bent and periodically rub against another connector (short circuit). Use a small flashlight and check the back side of the light switch. I may save you a trip to the shop.

[Cruzer]

I believe that the Discovery is on a Freightliner chassis. Our '04 Allegro Bus was on a Freightliner chassis and we had issues with our parking/marker lights as controlled through the SmartWheel. The lights being simply controlled through a headlamps switch was not the case. It was a series of staged components. The headlamp switch connected to the SmartWheel's controller module. The Smartwheel's headlamps output then fed a plug-in relay in the fuse block that was located on the floor of the center console (on Tiffin's anyway).

It was determined that the SmartWheel controller module failed so FL replaced it under warranty. In order to complete my trip I pulled the relay that fed the marker and tail lights and installed a jumper wire (it was a night driving trip) so that they would stay on and removed it during the day so that they would stay off. So, it could just be a faulty relay, rather than the switch. There are a number of identical relays in that fuse block. For testing purposes you can just swap a few around to see if the problem goes away (well, actually it'll migrate to some other circuit, like the fog lights ). If it does, then all you have to do is replace that relay. If not, then I'd look at the lighting switch.

One other possibility. If you have a SmartWheel it could be the controller. If you don't have a SmartWheel you may have an ICC switch. The ICC switch is used to flash your clearance lights as a thank you when overtaking. It's possible that this switch could be shorting out within itself.