HI guys. My daughter's 240 turbo has real mixed up lighting. One brake light won't come on at all no matter how much I rub an eraser on the contact film, no matter if I replace the bulb with a new one. I also noticed that when I turn on the light switch certain bulbs light up. But when I put the brake lights on certain bulbs do not light up that did before without the brakes on. Crazy. Do I need a new wiring fault detector? Should I get all new circuit board film for that model car? It is a mess.

I've eliminated the circuit board film on all of my Volvos. This seems to be the "weak" link in the chain on the rear tail lights. I remove the lamp holder and solder "pigtails" of Copper wire onto the back of the bulb holder tabs. After crimping on wire terminals to the ends, I simply plug the new pigtails onto the existing wiring ends and attach the grounding pigtail to a conveninet spot. This totally eliminates the faulty connection between the tab and the film, and also eliminates the need for the bulb holder to fit snugly in the tail lamp housing. If the bulb has good connection in the socket, the light will work everytime.
steve

I had a similar intermittent problem with the brake lamps on my '87 wagon. After tweaking terminals to improve contact, it worked for several months, only to have both brake lamps not work at all!

The problem turned out to be deformation of the lamp housing that accepts the lamp-in-holder assembly. With several hour-long waits at the Tijuana border in recent years, the heat from the incandescent bulbs must have easily softened the plastic, allowing the terminals to recede.

I decided that the only long-term solution was to eliminate the heat source. I got two LED replacement lamps from LED Tronics -- not cheap at $25 ea. They run dead cool, are as bright as the incandescents, and will likely never need replacing. It was necessary to carefully bend the receded terminials back up to their original height to restore good contact with the terminals on the holder.

So do a careful inspecton of the terminals to see if they are still all on the same level.

Did you get those bulbs direct from LEDtronics, or from another vendor? I've tried to buy from them, but they tell me I have to find a vendor, and they weren't very helpful. Have they changed their policy?
Thanks.

I found LEDtronics on the internet, read their literature (concluding that they most likely make the best lamps) and ordered with my credit card. Easy! Look 'em up.

Phil

The usual cause of lower wattage bulbs like taillights not working when the brake lights are on is bad grounding of the circuit boards. Further evidence would be if the tail on a given side goes dim each time its nearby turn signal bulb flashes. Start with that.
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Bob (son's 81-244GL B21F, dtr's 83-244DL B23F, 'my' 94-944 B230FD; plus grocery-getter Dodge minivan, hobbycar 77 MGB, and a few old motorcycles)

I had the same problem, and found that the circuit board had an open on one end.The quick fix, and it's been working for three years as of now, is to clean cct board and use brass shim stock to bridge the open gap, as everything is sandwiched when mounting the cct board or the light bulb sockets.

hope this helps