My left front turn signal works and then stops working randomly. There is nothing wrong with the bulb or the fuse.

When I remove the bulb, one of the contacts inside the headlight has a hole in the middle of it. When it is not working, if you touch the turn signal from behind sometimes it will work, so there is bad contact.

Am I basically stuck buying another entire headlight assembly?

There is a socket turn signal part 5174703AA but I assume that is what the bulb goes into and then is put inside the headlight assembly?

Any suggestions would be very very appreciated.

 

Same thing here, but t's my right front turn signal...

When I got the car (used, 30k miles), one of the interior lamps didn't work. I opened it up to check the bulb and found out that it was just a bad contact - must be a common issue. I simply cleaned (scraped) the interor socket and bulb contacs with my pocket knife, and it's still going strong.

I'm gonna try some DeOxIt on the turn signal socket...

 

Clean the contacts and add a tiny dab of conductive grease to them.

 

I was stuck getting two new headlight assemblies a few months back because of the exact same problem.

 

The lights have poor contacts, they loose contact and spark. Bend them back to make contact and add some grease as Max suggests, not dielectric grease though.

Cheaply made so they have to be bent back to shape, some are probably hardly touching from the factory.

 

No, really Dave: you want conductive grease on just the contacts. If you use regular grease, it is a great insulator. What would be the point?

Amazon.com: MG Chemicals Carbon Conductive Grease : 846-80G: Electronics

Conducto-Lube

 

for anything electric dielectric grease is to be used it is a great conductor for electricity

 

I bow to the experts but I believe the following.

Dielectric grease is a non conductive grease, and relies on a contact pushing through the grease to make the circuit with the other contact.
You use Dielectric grease on spark plug boots as a lubricant and to stop arcing down the plug insulator. Using a conductive grease on a spark plug boot would be looking for trouble.

Conductive electric greases like NO-OX-ID and OX-GARD are conductive greases. Apply it sparingly or it could short the circuit out.

Big difference in my eyes.

I said use grease like Max said, obviously conductive grease as was stated in the post. I said not to use dielectric grease which is the opposite of conductive grease. If you did not know it the very sight of the words electric in dielectric could push you to the wrong conclusion. Basically we (Max and I) agree on the use of conductive grease, I just added a warning. I was refuting old man's statement really.

 

Yep:

What Is Dielectric Grease?

you got 'er Dave.

 

Has anyone been able to source one of these? Or knows a suitable alternative? Another post on the forum shows 2 kinds of bulb socket and I (unfortunately) have the one that is known to be problematic. Are the parts interchangeable and, if so, what is is the part # of the "better" one. My part # is 5174703AA and it looks like it has been arcing and one of the contacts has burned through and is now broken off. Can the contact be "built-up" with solder to re-establish the connection??

 

I had this problem also, removed bulb and found the metal contact point on the plug was burned through. My fix was to cut a paper clip to size and fit it in the burned out hole. Ta da fixed!

 

I had that problem on my 04. I cleaned and tweaked the contacts. If I remember correctly I had to put a piece of copper wire in one to make good contact.

 

Buy a new bulb housing, and get the sturdier one: It will feel a little snug, but it fits. I fooled around for two years repairing the original housing only to have it fail again. I went to the dealer and bought a new housing, (I believe it was about $20 - $25) installed it and never had another problem. This was over three years ago. TBW

 

Please provide a part number? And was this a Chrysler dealer? M-B?

We NEED TO KNOW!

 

MOPAR part number 1-05174703AA (this was from Belgium, and repackaged as a MOPAR part) Good luck - TBW