2003 Pontiac Montana

Revjsorrells

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I own a 2003 Montana. I have been having electrical issues with it but do not have the money to take it to the shop yet. Any help would be much appreciated. I think the issues may be related.

1. I replaced my taillight/brake light bulbs and within three months both brake light parts are out. Only the LED third light works. All tail light bulbs still work. Also, it appears one of the little prongs inside the assembly on the driver side tail/brake bulb is rusted or something because it actually melts the plastic on the bulb. I do use the bulb grease.

2. On the factory radio it seemed that for the first two and a half years (we bought it in 2009) the right side of the LED display was faded and pretty much unreadable during the day. Then, a couple of months ago we noticed that it switched making the left side unreadable in the day and the right side was okay. Now for the last couple of weeks the whole display is readable.

After we purchased the van we were told that they have a lot of issues with electrical. Thank you in advance.
 
Well believe it or not both of those problems are common and in my opinion can be fixed by owner. The bulb sockets are weak and of poor design should be a recall but...... they use a couple pieces of wire to make contact instead of the old sockets with brass all the way around, they need to be cleaned sanded and scrapped to clean out the burnt corrosion to find good metal to make contact , but they may be so bad that they need replaced,and yes dielectric grease is good to use. As far as the radio goes this happened to me on my 2000 and as far as I know there is no cure except a replacement . Alot of places/stores on the internet have gm factory radios at a good price. Good luck and keep us posted.
 
If I remember correctly, the passenger side light is fed from the drivers side, so if it's shorted, or bad, you won't get voltage to the passenger side.
 
Thanks for the advice. I just don't understand why the bulbs go out. The vehicle has four tail lights with 2 of those having the filament for the brake light. If the brake side goes bad, any idea why the tail lights would not go as well?
 
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