Originally Posted by
onehundred80
Constant use of the cigarette lighter socket as a power outlet for a Garmin GPS unit and cell phone charger caused the two little spring retainers in the socket to get bent and not hold the depressed lighter in place while it warmed up.
The adapters on these two cables are wobbly and bend the springs out of position.
With the ignition off and using a small screwdriver I bent the springs back into position.
Not that I use the lighter but I like things to work properly.
So I gather by your post, power to the cigarette lighter occurs when the ignition switch is turned on (which is a good thing). Back when I owned Merkur XR4Ti's, the cigarette lighters (1 up front; 1 mounted in rear of console for backseaters) were hot-wired to the battery. The one in the console's rear was bad about malfunctioning (geometry between socket & lighter in rest position) and could come on & stay hot. One of my XR's had a battery drain issue which I traced to the rear cigarette lighter socket.