Hi, Im new to the forum, I came here looking for the answer to this same problem. I have an 01 Disco II, and the lights are doing the exact same thing. Drivers side tail lights, and license plate light will not work, have checked all fuses and replaced all bulbs. Does anyone have an answer to this problem? Thanks

 

I'm the guy who started this thread. I've never been able to solve this problem altho I must admit I've been pretty distracted and haven't ever torn into it as deeply asI intended. Our weather has been awful since Feb up until just a month or so ago.Then a month ago I had a heart attack so now I've been awful. My Disco has what I thought was the factory hitch. When I was snooping around behind both taillights I noticed a plug coming off the harness to the passenger side light. I believe that this was intended to be the trailer hitch tie in for the factory installed hitch light harness. Now I'm thinking (since I havefound out that my dual sunroofs are aftermarket and NOT "factory installed" as stated by previous owner(s)--one has failed and the manual crank site that I'd hoped to utilize does not exist!) that perhaps this hitch is also some cheesyadd on and the wiring for its was spliced in from some other bizarre location. I've checked fuses, replaced lamps, tapped on lights (which is not the way I want to resolve this anyhow) but nothing has happened. When I drive at night, I illuminate the rear "fog" lamps to avoid being pulled over for a no rear lights (driver's side)ticket. Eventually I'll get back into this. I did find an accurate wiring diagram that, if I can find it among the crap on my desk, I'll send on to you if you need it. Oh, and if you've found the magic twanger to solve this please let me know. I'm pretty sure this is going to be easy if I can just park this thing, put on my worst clothes,and get underneath and start tracing wires.

By the way, I put on Nitto Terra grapplers and they are great. Somewhat noiseier than the horrible Pirelli Spiders that were installed before. 4x4 manners are now way up!

Good luck!
Kevin
Northeastern Arkansas

 

You need to pull the light assembly from the trk and switch it with the otherside, if it works on the pass side then plug the pass side light into the drivers side and see what happens. Does it work? If not then you need to test for power to the connector, but I am thinking that your light assembley is bad. If it does NOT work when plugged into the pass side then your light assembly is bad.
Also check your ground wire.
Since more than one trk has this problem I tend to think that it is a bad light assembly, maybe the seal is bad and water has gotten inside the light and corroded the connectors.
You guys need to get this fixed, even if you dont drive at night you still have NO BRAKE LIGHT which is not safe.
I have a Camry and half of my tail lights are in the trunk lid, drivers side tail lights in the trunk do not work, every other Camry that is the same year as mine has the same problem. Could be the same for you guys.

 

I realize this is a really old post, but I just ran into the same exact thing as the original poster and see that no solution was found or posted.

I can say I firmly believe it is NOT the tail-light assembly (at least in my case). I had to buy a brand-new assembly (electronic backside bracket and all), however it is NOT OEM. And it the two top lights (running tail-lights) still do not work as well as my license plate lights. Seems to be a very strange pattern.

Before I came across this post I had also tried to plug in the passenger side tail-light assembly to the driver side harness as SPIKE555 had suggested (nothing lit up on the passenger side assembly while plugged into the driver side harness) ....I have not tested power to the connector as I just stared screwing around with it this afternoon.

If anyone eventually reads this and is interested and might shed light on the problem, i will run through the logistics of what happened that led up to the two top lights and license plate lights stopped working:

1. Forgot to secure the driver side lamp assembly while switching all lights to LED's and tail light fell off while driving and the bottom half was almost completely destroyed.

2. Re-installed the destroyed driver side assembly and taped off the bottom half that was exposed, so no rain (moister) would get inside. NOTE: the two top running lights as well as the brake light were working when I re-installed the busted tail light as well as the license plate lights. The reverse light and socket were completely destroyed, so there was nothing there for the reverse light to work.

3. After about a week or two I noticed the the two top running lights were out (brake light was still working). Thought it was because of the almost destroyed back-side electronic bracket.

4. New (aftermarket) driver side light assembly was installed this morning and found even with the new assembly the two top running lights still not working. I did a lot of switching and interchanging as far as switching LED lights back to original bulbs and switching left and right assembly's.

I am wondering as stated above if it did get wet while the bottom half was taped up. I may have not taped it up as well as I believed and it does rain a lot here.

....still looking for a solution. I am about to tear out all fuse's. Both fuse boxes. should be a real pain in the ***.

PLEASE NOTE: I do not have towing package as the original poster has. And I have a DISCO 2 2002

 

Same issue as me- i do realize this is an old post.

 

Some taillight issues are caused by the light stalk switch on the steering column.

Just to make sure, you can remove the stalk switch and disassemble. Clean all electrical contacts and replace.

This is of course after you have tried fuses, bulbs, easy stuff.

Good luck.

 

the switch works fine, the passenger lights are on- driver side are off along with the license plate

 

I have had discos where the headlights turned on but 1 or both of the taillights did not work because of the switch, its worth a shot.

 

Sorry, seems like this just happened after you installed LEDs, so I guess not unless this was an existing issue.

 

in the ones where the 1 light turn on, do they have the license plate lights on or off?

mine are off and this issue happened after the leds were installed.