[888]

On my 'new to me' 99 Forester, the 'door open' warning light seems to be possessed. Sometimes when I turn the car off via the key, it immediately comes on whether the car door(s) are open or not. It occasionally stays on after I open and close the door(s), it eventually turns itself off most times but not always. Once I got the light to turn off by actuating the door closed switch under the boot on the pass front door jamb but that has only worked once.

My thought at the moment is to remove the boots and spray the switches with contact cleaner, possibly adjust them out a little more......

Has anyone encountered this before and know how to solve it?

Thanks

 

[flstffxe]

Door switches indeed do go bad. You can either replace them or bypass them.

 

[888]

Door switches indeed do go bad. You can either replace them or bypass them.

OK, I'll try to figure out which one it is and go from there. It's not totally clear which one is acting up but electrical stuff is never clear, is it?

thanks

 

[bbottomley]

Test them one at a time. All it takes is unscrewing the switch and pulling it out of its mounting in the frame. In all likelihood there will only be one wire and the circuit will get its ground through its mounting, so simply removing it from the mounting should be enough to test whether it's become stuck. No need to disconnect the wire.

Remember that there's a switch for the lift gate too. That's probably the hardest one to work with, so make that the last one you check.

If you should disconnect the wire from a switch, be very sure to tie a string to it or otherwise prevent it from accidentally falling back into the hole and disappearing into the frame.

 

[Peaty]

Do you have the OEM alarm? Does the dome light on when you turn the car off even if a door is not open? That may be the issue, if I remember right that's normal.