Cigarette Lighter Not Working (Checked fuses and assembly)
 

Hello,

I can't seem to figure out why my cigarette lighter won't work on my '94 Accord LX. I've checked the fuses in the car and under the hood, and they seem fine. That, plus the fact that my stereo works just fine. I thought it might be the assembly that was broken, so I replaced it with a new one, but that hasn't fixed the issue either.

At this point I'm guessing that it's faulty wiring? I'm not sure how to diagnose/fix that though.

Any help is really appreciated.


Cheers!!

1. Disconnect the 4P gray connector to the cigarette lighter.

2. To test for power (+) : With a multimeter/voltmeter set to test DC voltage (set to 20V, unless your meter is auto-ranging) , touch the meter's red lead to the Wht/Red wire and the meter's black lead to body ground. With the ignition turned to ACC or ON, the meter should read ~ 12 volts (battery power). Wht/Red is a wire with white colored insulation and a red stripe running through.

If there is no power on the Wht/Red wire with the ignition to ACC or ON, the problem lies in the Wht/Red power wire to the cigarette lighter.

3. To test for ground (-): Set to the multimeter/ohmmeter to test for continuity. Set to either the "ohms" or the setting it will beep when you hold the two leads together. Touch the meter's black lead to body ground and the meter's red lead to the 4P connector's Blk wire.

• If your meter beeps, it means you have continuity.
• If it is on ohms scale, you will have continuity when it reads close to 0 ohms.
• If it doesn't beep , shows OL (open line) or a 1 (infinity ohms); it means you don't have continuity.

There should be continuity on the Blk wire. However, if you have no continuity to ground on the Blk wire, that means you probably have an open/break in the Blk wire.

Thanks for the reply!! A couple of questions:

1) When testing for ground, how exactly do I attach the other end to the body's ground? The only place I know of is in under the hood, which is clearly not accessible from the inside.

2) Assuming that it really is faulty wiring, how should I go about fixing that?


Once again, thanks for the info. Much appreciated!!

Body ground is just some metal part of the body. There are various metal brackets, etc. under the dash where you can touch the meter's lead to.

If the wire was faulty, you would first try to visually check for any damage. It can just be a wire loose from a connector. If the wire was damaged, then you may have to splice in a new section of wiring.

Excellent! I will fish out my multimeter and give this a shot. Will report back when I have information to share.

Thanks!!

Okay, so I popped out my dashboard and I notice two things:

1) The ground wire got detached from the cigarette lighter somehow
2) The stereo stopped working


I was concerned that there might be a short (since the stereo was working fine right up to this point), so I tested the live and ground wires using my multimeter. With everything looking good, I replaced the fuse and put everything back together.

Voila!! Stereo and cigarette lighter workings!!


Thanks again for all the help!!

Good to hear. Thanks for reporting back that the issue is resolved.