Many crown victoria police interceptors have the "dark car" option enabled. When a door is opened, the domelight will not illuminate, but the overhead interior light will operate when the headlight switch is pushed in to turn on the domelight. At first, I thought the stealthy "dark car" option was a neat feature, but it quickly became an annoyance after a couple of weeks. If you're observant, you'll notice that the car does know when the drivers door is open because the key in ignition buzzer engages when keys are in ignition and drivers door is opened, and it also engages if the headlights are left on and the drivers door is opened.
To ACTIVATE Dark Car (disable "normal" dome lighting):
Disconnect the battery. If you prefer, pull fuses #4,8,&12 in the central junction box - so you won’t lose your presets etc. {fuse numbers may not be correct for your model year, please consult your owner's manual to verify fuse numbers).
Locate the blue single pole connector to the right of the central console, near the carpet edge, and plug the two ends of the connector together.
Reconnect the battery (replace fuses).
Cycle doors to verify changes.
Note: the dome light will remain operational from the Headlamp switch position
To DE-Activate Dark Car (enable “normal” dome lighting):
Disconnect the battery. If you prefer, pull fuses #4,8,&12 in the central junction box - so you won’t lose your presets etc. {fuse numbers may not be correct for your model year, please consult your owner's manual to verify fuse locations).
Locate the blue single pole connector to the right of the central console, near the carpet edge, and UNplug the connector.
Reconnect the battery (replace fuses).
Cycle doors to verify changes.
The LCM needs to have it’s “keep alive” power interrupted to cause it to re-examine it’s programming, so you do need to disconnect the power sources before any changes will take effect. I suppose, you could just unplug the harnesses to the LCM to disrupt it’s power, but I’d much rather pull fuses than “stand” on my head pulling connectors.
Note: A pair of pliers may be useful to separate the connectors, they can be very stubborn and not want to pull apart from one another easily. If you get desperate, cutting the single black wire running out of the connector will work as well. Make sure to tape up the exposed ends if you choose this route.
Also note that it if the vehicle's battery is not disconnected after the dark mode connectors are separated, the lcm will typically exit dark mode too. But it will take countless door open/close events until the domelight mysteriously springs to life. And even this will vary depending on which software version your lighting computer runs on.
It is also possible to refresh the lcm's keep alive memory by pulling fuses instead of disconnecting the battery, but the power distribution systems varies in crown vics depending on model year and the lcm is also fed off of a couple different circuits. So you'd have to pull more than one fuse, and which fuses to pull would also vary. Hence, the suggestion to disconnect the vehicles battery which effectively removes all the fuses in one quick step.
This article is only relevant to 1995 through 2004 crown victoria police interceptors, the connector in question is not present on earlier vehicles. 1994 and prior crown vics use a conventional parallel/series wiring setup for dome light illumination. 1995 and later use a lighting control module and the dome lights can be disabled on the 2005 and earlier crownvics by grounding one of the LCM pins when it is not desirable for the courtesy lights to illuminate when a door is opened.
*Note the 2005 crownvics still have a dark car connector, but it is located in a different location. Starting in the 2006 model year, the dark car option is enabled/disabled using the ford ids laptop and vcm to connect to your vehicle and electronically alter the module preferences inside the lcm. Unfortunately, for most crown vic owners this will mean a trip to your local ford dealer's service department. However, if you are a large volume shop, regularly want to be able to toggle the dark car feature, and can justify spending a few thousand dollars, you can purchase a vcm and the ids software subscription.
*Note: Instead of conventional pin switches on the door jamb, 1995 and later crown vics use a door ajar switch located inside the door on top of the latch mechanism. Is not uncommon for these switches to fail and short to ground, so domelight illuminates constantly and will not shut off. Also, some police departments cut the wire running to the drivers door ajar switch since this disables the key in ignition buzzer and parking light reminder buzzer. See the [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] for further details on this topic.
Congratulations, you now know more about your car than the average person.
A few crown vic owners have asked how to retrofit the dark car option onto their civilian models. Below are a few solutions:
* Remove all the bulbs from the courtesy light sockets
* Cut the courtesy light output wire at the back of the LCM
* Cut the door ajar wire inputs at the back of the LCM. This will also disable the key in ignition and headlight warning buzzers.
* Add the dark car pin to civilian LCM connector and ground the wire. Note that to toggle between dark mode and normal lighting mode, one would have to disconnect the vehicle's battery or momentarily remove the fuses that power the LCM's keep-alive memory.
Some crownvic owners have commented that their domelight still will not light up after disabling dark car mode. This is often because police agencies cut the drivers door ajar wire to silence the key in ignition lock buzzer. Common places to cut this wire would be at the electrical connector on the back of the lcm, behind the driver's kick-panel, and near the door latch inside the driver's door. If you turn the ignition key to the "ACC" position, open the driver's door, and don't hear a warning chime then you've likely got a cut wire somewhere. Also if you get the warning chime with the key in the ignition, but still no domelight after disabling darkcar mode, do not overlook the obvious problem of a burned out or missing bulb in the overhead domelight assembly itself.
*information from and special thanks to [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
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