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I have a 95 Chevy S10.

When I drive my truck around at night I notice that occasionally my headlights turn off for about 3 seconds and then come back on by themselves. There doesn't seem to be any kind of consistency to it. It does it when I'm driving, when I'm sitting, even when the engine is turned off. It made a clicking sound a couple of times too if I remember rightly.

Tonight I drove again and it got so bad that they wouldn't stay on for more than a few seconds and since I've been wiggling the wires behind the headlight switch they haven't yet come back. I don't know for sure if wiggling had any effect or not though or if it was coincidental (Wiggling didn't cause any flickering). When I wiggled the wire connector thingy that leads into the headlights switch I noticed that it was hot which didn't seem right to me.

When I drove home I tried to turn them off then on again until it worked, but I don't know if it came back (when it did come back) because of that. (I mention that as a possible explanation for the hot connector.)

The daytime running lamps stay on (or at least I think they are the DRL's, (they're yellow)).

Some other details that could be related although may be entirely unrelated are that both the fog lights and the dashboard lights that light up the meters haven't ever worked since I bought the thing a couple months ago (e-brake, check engine etc lights still work though). The reason I mention it is because both of these are also switches next to the headlight switch and connect in the same general area.

Being that I know very little about vehicles I wiggled some random wires near the headlights themselves and near the battery and it had no effect. I'm assuming it's something in the wiring in the cab.

Any advice?

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The headlight wiring is protected from being overheated (a short,overcurrent) by a circuit breaker. It operates like a circuit breaker in your house except it has an auto reset feature. The clicking you hear may be the circuit breaker resetting. With your admitted limited knowledge this is a job for a pro.

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  • Thanks mikes. I'm a quick learner and also broke. Can you give me any more information that might help me out even more? Like how to troubleshoot this?
    – Kevin Beal
    Nov 12, 2012 at 16:46
  • Without a wiring diagram you are in for hours of frustration. The next time the lights fail try to notice what else doesn't work at the same time the lights fail. Then you can narrow it down a wire they have in common. Following a wiring diagram is not something that can be explained in a couple of paragraphs.
    – mikes
    Nov 13, 2012 at 0:41
  • Okay. I'll bring it into the shop. Thank you for your help.
    – Kevin Beal
    Nov 13, 2012 at 2:37
  • This happened to my 97 S10, clicking and all. I had the headlight switch replaced and it solved the problem. It cost me about $100.
    – Jyler
    Oct 12, 2015 at 13:25

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