Trailer lights issues
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Amateur
Joined: Sep 2017
Posts: 25
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Trailer lights issues
I have a 2009 Durango V6
I had a Curt trailer hitch and wiring installed by a small shop mabye 3 years ago. I have running lights all around, but no tailights. No blinkers, no brake lights, or anything. If the same trailer is plugged into another vehicle, all the trailer lights work. I have cleaned all the contacts and applied dialectic grease routinely. I even changed out the connector on the harness because a test light shows one pin has no voltage. I now assume the problem is with how the harness is tied into the wiring on the truck. Ideally, I'd just redo it. Judging by the amount of electrical tape and zipties used on the harness, they probably grabbed some universal harness and spliced it in.
Anything else I can check? Why would there be no voltage from the truck?
Any recommendations for a plug and play trailer wiring harness for this model?
Thanks
I had a Curt trailer hitch and wiring installed by a small shop mabye 3 years ago. I have running lights all around, but no tailights. No blinkers, no brake lights, or anything. If the same trailer is plugged into another vehicle, all the trailer lights work. I have cleaned all the contacts and applied dialectic grease routinely. I even changed out the connector on the harness because a test light shows one pin has no voltage. I now assume the problem is with how the harness is tied into the wiring on the truck. Ideally, I'd just redo it. Judging by the amount of electrical tape and zipties used on the harness, they probably grabbed some universal harness and spliced it in.
Anything else I can check? Why would there be no voltage from the truck?
Any recommendations for a plug and play trailer wiring harness for this model?
Thanks
Record Breaker
Joined: Feb 2015
Posts: 1,122
Likes: 53
From: Iowa
Is this a 4-wire trailer connector you're referring to or a 7-pin round trailer connector?
For a plug and play version, you might want to visit a site like etrailer.com to see what's available. It sounds like the place that installed your existing wiring likely spliced the original wiring and if they used electrical tape, they probably also used non-weather sealed splices. I hate those things and have seen many similar trailer wiring installs cause lighting issues on both the trailer as well as the vehicle. If the splices are not weather sealed (and electrical tape is not a good weather seal either) the copper wiring will corrode and stop making a good connection. The real bummer is the vehicle wiring also corrodes and usually by the time lights stop working, the corrosion has destroyed several feet of copper so fixing the issue properly requires cutting out several feet of wire and replacing with adhesive lined shrink sleeving over soldered connections, or using solder splices.
-Rod
For a plug and play version, you might want to visit a site like etrailer.com to see what's available. It sounds like the place that installed your existing wiring likely spliced the original wiring and if they used electrical tape, they probably also used non-weather sealed splices. I hate those things and have seen many similar trailer wiring installs cause lighting issues on both the trailer as well as the vehicle. If the splices are not weather sealed (and electrical tape is not a good weather seal either) the copper wiring will corrode and stop making a good connection. The real bummer is the vehicle wiring also corrodes and usually by the time lights stop working, the corrosion has destroyed several feet of copper so fixing the issue properly requires cutting out several feet of wire and replacing with adhesive lined shrink sleeving over soldered connections, or using solder splices.
-Rod
