E200 Interior Lights

[GregM]

Hi all

I am new so hopefully this is in the right place, suitable untechnical etc but tell if I have this wrong...

I have just purchased a second hand E200 estate which is just great so far but a couple of things surprised me a bit and I just wondered if it was normal behaviour and therefore something to get used to or if I have missed a switch somewhere.

If I set the interior lights to come on automatically when the doors open they, for some reason, do not go off again unless I hit the switch and manually do it....even when I start the engine. Which is OK if I am in the car but it means when I leave the car the lights seem to stay on indefinitely. So I just leave them all turned off. Have I got a sequence of switches wrong or is there something amiss here?

Excuse a new owner a few silly questions! I have even read the manual!

 

[jberks]

yes - you've got the switches wrong. It should go off after a few seconds automatically. I normally get the setting I want but if you asked me how I'm not sure I could tell you. Those buttons are not exactly intuative!

 

[GregM]

I think I know what is happening now...

I noticed that in addition to the lights not going off when the door closes that the central locking button on the dash board does not lock the doors (it will unlock the doors however).

What that means to me is that somewhere the car thinks that one of the doors is still open - which it isn't! Thus not turning the interior lights off and not allowing the central locking switch to operate.

So there is a loose connection on one or all of the switches on the doors though visual inspection shows they are all intact and retract appropriately.

So is there any way as a layman I can check this theory out without too much complication/expense?