Cigarette Lighter Help
 

All,

I am seeing some odd behavior with my cigarette lighters and I was hoping you could help out. If I put a meter to one of them, I am getting 12 volts steady. As soon as I plug something, the voltage starts bouncing all around between 6 and 10 volts.... Any thoughts of how I could go about finding the issue?

Thanks
Andy

what year and model is ur x ?
is the car running when plug in?
what are you trying to plug in power inverter?

sorry for the lack of info. I have an 04 3.0i.

I am just pluggin in a cell charger, or my GPS. I thought it might be my charger, but I tried several others as well. LOL... I actually threw away 2 of them thinking they were defective. I have tried with the car running and off, both seem to be the same.

Any clues where to start?

try changing your fuse 1st it may help it may not be plugged in properly :dunno:

Voltage fluctuations of this nature on a DC supply are normally cased by a bad connection somewhere in the supply line... quite probably at the fuse as suggested by sarb. What happens is that the bad connection is providing a high resistance joint and as soon as you try to draw current thru it the voltage drops. V=IR etc...

If it is happening at all your cigarette lighter outlets (front dash, front foot well, rear console, and 2 in the trunk), then the problem is most likely at the fuse, or some other common junction. I can't remember off hand if the back and front sockets all use one fuse...

:iagree:

Could it be that the battery is going bad?

I dont think that the battery is at fault as you would see other electrical faults. Its likely to be a poor connection causing resistance.

If the battery was that bad that the cell phone charger could pull the volatage down then nothing else in the car would work. If the car starts, then the battery is ok! The starter motor on a car, when turning the engine, is the single biggest current load on the battery, by far.