Gosh I love the comment section! Seriously I do. So much knowledge and ideas can get tossed around and talked about. I do honestly enjoy reading and understanding you folks better. Here are my thoughts after a few hundred comments... kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ob5ld5qFv8XUmKs.html

Intermittent problems are a nightmare. Especially if they never quite become a full-time problem to facilitate tracing. As other have mentioned, with enough free time, adding an inline fuse to each of the three sections of that circuit would have helped pin the rogue are down, but again, the fault may not appear again for a month. Intermittents completely eat time.

It’s not really that he can’t fix it. He is just smart enough to not spend 8hrs on a ghost issue. We all know he will fix it eventually. We have faith in you Eric 👍

Intermittent exterior lights, require a local or state police car behind you while on your test drive to get them to act up.

Finally I can do , what Eric can do. Thanks Eric.

Taking the car for a spin is the excuse for Eric to partake of his daily Soft Serve Ice Cream.

Working at an RV dealership, we had a Winnebago motorhome come in with an intermittent fuse blowing. Mechanic did the same thing as you. Worked on it way longer than he really should have. Was ready to call it when he stepped out the entrance door and the fuse blew. Subsequent tracing of the wiring harness, he found where a bundle of wires went through the firewall, one of the wires was chaffed just enough that when the coach rocked, the wire rubbed on the firewall causing the short.

"And just remember viewers, if I CAN'T do it, YOU CAN'T do it either" 🙂SMA is the best!

I give you a lot of credit Eric for your patience. 1st red flag "6 months to blow fuse" 2nd red flag "would like to pick it up Saturday",, ahhh nooo. we dont run a non-profit repair shop. we need to put food on the table. can't believe anyone would criticize your effort. i do have an idea is maybe a tech school may look at it. they can afford the time to learn perhaps. TY for the videos.

Best way I have found is to install a fuse in each power feed. That way you will have a path to follow based on which fuse blows. Will eliminate front circuits, from back circuits, or however you install the fuses ( I call them traps ). That way ...when customer comes back, he will be supplying part of the elusive answer. Also makes for a happier customer, because they are an active part of solving the mystery. Try it you will like the outcome.

Eric, I’ve had 1 bulb that was shorted inside the bulb. The arm that the filament was attached to broke and would cross with the other one and blow the fuse. This was on a 1157 or 1156 bulb. I’ve only had it happen once in my 50+ years of working as a mechanic. Me and my wife love your channel. Keep up the good work

FAVORITE MACHANIC AND ALL WE GOT WAS CRICKETS.....

Well when there is not much you can do, it's foolish and dishonest to continue chasing such a ghost! MUCH RESPECT for calling it as you did.

Happy Labor day weekend everybody!

For anyone who's job is to fix things, intermittents are the worst. Even if you think you fixed it, you can't be sure.

"BOOM!! All y'all just got lit up cup!!"

ERIC, YOU ARE ALL LOGIC ALONG WITH YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY ESPECIALLY MRS. O. YOU ARE EXAMPLE TO THE UNIVERSE. THANK YOU ALL.

After watching the first few mins of this vid I was really excited because I worked on an identical vehicle for the EXACT same intermittent fuse failure and I was really hoping to know what the fault was going to be.....however, I do feel a little better because Eric O didn't find the problem in less than ten minutes...Love your vids, my guy !

I was a telecom tech and use to give customers a five mile or five minute guarantee after a service call where I couldn't find a defective circuit. As far a GM, I found out that like my Chevy Express van, many had bad tail light sockets. I replaced both of my rear light sockets with a newer style that still fit and worked and never had anymore problems. It was an intermittent ground problem within the sockets.

Time to get Pine Hollow involved.

Customer's final comment was that the fuse was blowing immediately. But, when it came to diagnosing, all is good. AARRRRGGGGG!!!

Eric I thought he clearly said in the note at 1:02 that when he put the NEW harness in the fuse blew immediately, he then took the new one out and put the OLD one in so you could see it in its original state. You needed to reinstall the new harness to see it blow immediately or at least potentially blow immediately.

IF the customer really wanted the intermitent short fixed you could install 3 differant temperary inline smaller fuses on the output of each of the light circuits coming out of the fuse box. Then give it back to them and let them drive it.That way when one of the fuses blows you are that closer in pinpointing the location of the short by seeing whitch fuse blows .

Ever since I rolled my truck and had to have most of the body replaced and the frame straightened, it doesn't look or act like a brand new truck like it did 50 years ago.

"Pray the regulators work" love it, my thoughts exactly every time i push the button, not good when you push button and window falls to bottom of door.

No real working mechanic has time to hunt down intermittents, this looks like a job for Ivan Pine Hollow Auto Diagnostics!

I’m anxiously waiting for part 2 because you know that puppy is coming back eventually 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

If I was the customer, I'd replace every bulb to start with, especially considering he has so many blown.

Eric I used to be a fire alarm tech. Intermittants was a HUGE pita.. They, while causeing peoblems, also rolled the fire trucks. I was very good but some of these problems can crush your soul. I always listened to the story ( grain of salt) and kept my eyes open, stayed open minded and hoed for luck. but having to say sorry bud was the hardest part. I knew I was just gonna have to look again later (and have more hostility). I didthis for almost 30 years..retired now thank god I lived thru it. Keep patient.

The only intermittent issue that is easy to fix is wipers that work intermittently when on the delay setting.

Sometimes when dealing with electrical gremlins, check the driver side door for broken or exposed wires.

Replace the fuse with a piece of jumper wire and leave a fire extinguisher in the cabin. When the short reappears just follow the smoke to the problem, put out the fire, remove the jumper wire, and bring it back to be repaired.

As soon as you said Lic lamps on circuit. customer opened gate to repair tail lamp. Ding ding. Inspect body harness pass through. Intermittent issues are tough to find and will use up time that’s tough to charge for. Good call. Bring it back when it’s broken. You could split the circuit but it wouldn’t be easy.

Perhaps one of the blown bulbs has a short section of filament that shorts out intermittently? Replace all the blown bulbs 💡

I had an issue where a fuse would blow randomly to rear light circuits on a car, and it took a few months of them coming back after it had blown the fuse a few times to finally find the issue. The customer was really good about it over the time frame too, knowing it was something that was very intermittent and it could not be easily duplicated. The problem was finally traced to the flat ribbon section of harness that passes alongside the rear seats lower frame. A sharp piece of stray spot weld flash on a bracket would cut down into the harness only when someone sat in the rear seat on that side.

"I have wiggled, shaked, poked". Sounds like a good time to me.

My brother worked directly out of the GM manufacturer, to go out and correct these crazy problems at the mechanics at the GM dealership could not. He had quite a few interesting tools that he used to trace down problems like this. he ran the technical support department for a long time too at Pontiac Michigan. Until he went to Allison transmissions, in between these two jobs.

it was nice of you to try. Thumbs up for the effort.

I had a similar intermittent problem once but a bit more regular than this one. Fortunately I remembered that it started after I changed one of the bulbs. Turned out that the bulb was faulty, occasionally shorting to ground inside the bulb. That could have been just as difficult to find without that bit of extra information.

OMG.....The cricket in the background. LOL

Eric: "If I can't do it! You can't do it!" LOL

Ah yes, intermittents can truly suck. I won't look at a car unless the customer knows exactly how to reproduce the complaint, or at least give a very detailed history of what was done before/after the issue occurred. 2 hour diag charge minimum, and no guarantees if the car doesn't act up!

As an old Mechanic I feel your pain Eric. Not sating it is but this issue reminds me of the vehicle I had while working at a Chevy Dealership. It would intermittently blow the taillight fuse. After tearing my hair out (as it was under warranty) it ended up being a taillight/turn signal bulb (old 1157 bulb) that the two filaments would sometimes short to ground. (temperature related)

I've worked on automotive electrical systems since the late '80s and the only thing worse than intermittent problems are the "it wasn't like that before I brought it here" problems....

That damn cricket 🦗

Intermittent problems will drive a technician absolutely nuts. I feel your pain.

If it ain't broke, just fix it till it is.

Intermittent failures when I worked on large computer systems were the worst. Doing the wiggle jiggle test thermal sensitivity test, reseating cards, running diagnostics is all you could do to get it to fail on command. After that you just had to SWAG it by changing circuit boards and components until you fix it. And if that didn't work we had to replace major chunks of the system until it wouldn't fail. If we would send the bad part in for repair and we got it back with the same problem we made the problem permanent with a suicide cord and let the magic smoke out.

I had a Porsche customer this week I had to tell this too, he had so many other problems with the car that I didn’t know if one correlated with the other and could not promise him anything and I still replaced the sensors at his request and it still didn’t repair the issue as I suspected, thankfully he was kool and understood I did what I could

I realize I'm late on this one, but when something is this sketchy and impossible to reproduce, time demands you move on. And I'm sure nobody is more frustrated by it than you! Thanks as always, Eric.

I haven’t read all the other comments, but I’ve found voltage drop testing can sometimes find intermittent faults. Other than the regular corrosion and frayed wire faults, it can also sometimes find broken wires or loose connectors still making (intermittent) contact. The resistance will be higher due to the typically poor connection, making it a good candidate for voltage drop testing. Just saying’…

I had a similar problem with a friend's GMC truck. His taillights were out. I found a blown fuse, replaced it and all was good!...? Time went by and the fuse blew again. When I checked it, everything was fine. Intermittent annoyance. I finally told him that I could install a circuit breaker that would reset itself every time it blew. I know it's not a proper fix but this was a favor and I was tired of spending hours on this and the circuit breaker would get him by. My friend said it seldom blew so he would just replace the fuse. Fine, I'm done helping. Remember viewers, if Eric can't do it, I can't do it.

Had a 1998 Ford Expedition 4x4. Definitely took it off road (secondary roads mostly). Soon then vehicle would cut off while I'm driving I mean just off it we shutting down right now!! The Ford mechanic could not duplicate the malfunction either. But the problem clearly kept happening as they would come pickup the vehicle from the side streets. Finally one mechanic put like 4 fuses on four wires near the engine fuze box and into the cab wiring harness; he said when it shuts down, we'll know something. Of course it did shut down (I didn't drive it on highways). They found the transmission crossmember and a nice ding on the front side of it and asked me had I been off road. Um yeaaaaas!! (Jim Carry impersonation). Well they found that whatever I hit drove the cross member upwards which drove the center to tail portion of the transmission up just enough to pinch a wire bundle which caused the intermittent short. That was frustrating on all parties but I have to thank the Ford mechanic for his/her persistence and they thanked me for my patience throughout the countless CND and Returned To Customer (RdTC)!!

Anything short of a stroke of luck or divine intervention, is doomed to fail in cases like this. It's nobody's fault, that's just what it is. Great effort, anyway.

Been there several times. Always tell my customers ahead of time , we may not be able to duplicate the issue, but we still have to charge you. In meantime , other cars pile up on the lot , don’t feel bad , can’t fix what you can’t find !! Great channel by the way 👍

That cricket is trying to become the next KZfaq star!

I have seen a 20a house breaker open when an incandescent bulb blew. I wouldn't give up until all the burnt bulbs on that side were replaced.

From past experience, the trailer pigtail would draw my attention first.

During my time in the USAF working KC-135 & B-52, we hated intermittent problems and even had a maintenance code we called CND or cannot duplicate.

I once troubleshoot similar problem on an old pickup truck, busting brake lamp fuse intermittently. After wasting 2 fuses, I decided to trace the wire from brake lamp inching toward front and found the culprit under the vehicle. The harness at one point is rubbing against the exhaust pipe! Easy repair but it took two days of troubleshooting. I can't blame Eric for quitting because the problem is trully a nightmare and time waster.

not many people would put the effort into finding the problem like you did

Amazon sells automatically resetting circuit breakers that fit into a mini blade fuse spot. Not a fix for a professional shop but if it was my truck…

I found your channel researching an intermittent power draw in my 2003 Chevy 2500, that was a gauge cluster. Of course, every time my battery died I'd search for the problem. 2 1/2 years later I found the drivers power seat switch finally became a permanent problem and I was able to find it. My gauge cluster did go nuts and got replaced during this time. Intermittent electrical problems suck.

There may be a socket/bulb that is intermittently becoming wet causing short to ground. That explains the car wash and once a month blown fuse theory. Then again, it isn't worth your time if it's costing money. Love your videos!

I had one on a pickup. Hand wash it and the fuse for the dome light/bed light would blow. Easy right, had to be the light. Open it up, dry. Drive in the pouring rain, snow never blew. Automatic Car wash never blew. Finally checked the door switches, one had a boot with a crack in it and was wet. Replaced the boot and it never happened again.

Used to love fixing intermittents in consumer electronics. Even had a customer whose microwave oven always worked when he brought it to the shop, so for about 6 months he just put it in the car when it played up and it would work again. Finally it gave up completely and was an easy fix.

That tailgate harness you had your hand on is notorious for rubbing on a non-insulated pass through above the headliner. I've seen it cause an intermittent power tailgate non-op but I suppose it could short out a license plate bulb circuit just as easy.

What a great customer, giving the full story on paper for later reference. Seeing it has a towbar and quite beefy one. Electronic brake controller module fault or the trailer plug loom has been spliced in with scotch locks.

great call Eric ....intermittent's are the worst...

Used to give fighter pilots a 'could not duplicate' (CND) response to some inflight write-ups. Hated doing it as well because you could clearly see a malfunction in the HUD tapes, but our thing was we can't just go slaving in parts. Not sure how a loose pin pulling out of a backshell under g-load was discovered during ground ops checks; perhaps from several times of connecting and disconnecting test cannon-plugs. I feel ya...

Could spend all day and still not find that one. First place I'd look is behind all the light assemblies for pinched wires though

I’m from California. Just want to say when you take the test drives it’s something else. All the green nothing around that’s nice. Love your videos. That you.

Remove the driver side headlight and check if moisture is causing the short. Also, check if the bulbs are correct in the headlight, taillight, and plate lights.

I had a similar problem with failed brake lights, which it turns out was caused by a blown fuse that also fed interior and door courtesy lamps. I futzed with it for about half a year, replacing the fuse maybe once a week on average. Eventually I put a self-resetting breaker in that position and had no more trouble for a few months. The affected lights were out again, and when I went to pull the self-resetting breaker it seared my fingertips... the breaker was welded closed. With a solid short, I spent most of a weekend hunting it down. I had all the seats and carpet out of the car, and I forget what else, when I isolated the problem to the wire that fed the front passenger door courtesy light. Taking the panel off it I found the wire had been banging against a sharp edge and finally welded itself on. The failed self-resetting breaker had created a fire hazard. The moral of the story is Eric O made the right decision: the odds of finding the culprit in a sane amount of time is virtually zero. As much of a disappointment as it is, feeding it fuses is about the best the owner can do.

A suggestion, Eric. Build a pigtail 15 amp breaker to swap with the fuse, then set a date a few months out to go back to the fuse. That should be enough time for the breaker to "burn the weeds back" and the customer will have lights 99.9% of the time. The slower response of the breaker might leave a few electrical wounds that you can see for a permanent solution. Keep talking us back in off the ledges!

The good old " Power T" on the tailgate! Found the problem! It's the Tennessee volunteers football symbol, it only plays well when it wants to! Vol fan for 50 years! Drop the power t and watch it all work!

Just remember Murphy's law "any appliance, when demonstrated for the repairman will work perfectly every time". The term appliance ALSO applies to machinery, including automobiles.

You’re the man Eric. Hopefully you can enjoy some of your weekend. Take care. Love your videos.

The title I know ain’t true because ain’t nothing Eric can’t fix 👊🏻

Super suprised he never looked at the bulbs...Had that before! Fixed many of these illusive ghosts by first replacing all the bulbs and cleaning up the sockets on the problem circuit. Ghosts gone!

Eric, intermittent problems are the worst. I run my own business repairing dental/medical equipment. I always explain to my customers that unfortunately when it’s working, it’s working and it can sometimes be very difficult to run proper diagnostics on something that’s working. That’s not always the case but you understand. it’s funny because repairing dental equipment it’s not all that different than repairing automobiles. You have hydraulics, pneumatics, electronics and computers all in one pain in the ass I mean neatly packaged product :-) Intershittent I mean intermittent problems are the worst. Love the videos, hope your family is doing well keep up the good work. Wish you were in my area because damn it’s hard to find a decent technician let alone somebody at your level and caliber!

Had a S10 pickup that would loose lights intermittently and of course would never fail at the mechanics.... finally found it by accident in the steering column wiring. What a pain!

I don't blame you at all. These things can sometimes be nightmares. But I believe the customer knows this and has faith in your work. Hey I'd sure as heck trust you to work on my own personal car! Thanks for sharing

General policy of not taking in intermittent problems for diagnostic is a good policy. Used to run a shop and found that even letting in an intermittent problem vehicle for unrelated work usually resulted in the customer insisting that somehow the shop had done something to the related to the intermittent and it was, therefore, the shop's responsibility to fix the intermittent problem. Most customers only hear what they want to hear.

My comment isn't gonna make you feel any better, but this vid made MEEEEE (It's all about MEEEEE!! 🤣) feel a bit better! I always blamed my lack of skill for not being able to find issues like this, but you're right - if it ain't broke, how the heck can ya fix it?? Like finding a needle in a haystack with 100, 000 miles of wiring in modern vehicles. I've got MANY intermittents this year alone! It was weighing on my confidence! Was thinking maybe I should just hang it up since I have zero patience for stuff like this, and I get so mad! I appreciate you showing this one, since I just realized it's NOT just me! I had a little bit of a tough one this week. That blue Saturn from my no-crank vid 3 years back was back in here AGAIN (4th time in 6 months - different issue every time! Last was a failed neutral safety switch ... then a failed replacement! Took 3 tries to get a good one - NAPA saved the day there). Owner said it crapped out in an intersection on a upper 80° day, and she had to get pushed by a couple fellas into a parking lot. Hooked up my trailer and headed out on the mean streets of MA to retrieve it. Thing fires right up and ran MINT! Didn't even have to use the winch! SWEEET! Big time saver right there, and I desperately needed that since rush hour was fast approaching, and I was in the THICK of it. Got home, immediately got her in the air running with the scan tool on. Idle was a little high at first, and fuel trims were going crazy negative, so I'm thinking MAP sensor (No MAF), a leak there, or a failing o2. I watched, and watched and watched. Other than negative trims (-20 total, varying), nothing jumped out at me. Sprayed acetone into a vacuum line and watched both o2's go full rich and stalled it. Fired her back up and left the line detached, and the went positive while o2's dropped flat. Disconnected the EVAP purge line from the intake & blocked the vac leak there - zero change in trims. HMMM!! Ran out of ideas! drove it up and down my street several times - excellent power, idle, everything - there's no problem to fix! Picked it up the next day letting it idle for a LONG time with no changes. Had to jump on something else that week and put it on the back burner. So today, I figured I'd take it to my dad's place about 40 miles out. Hooked up the scan tool and headed out. Still negative and varying trims. Saw almost -30 total at one point, but then it would instantly drop to -14. Excellent power, excellent idle, perfect cruise! WTH!! And THEN ... after driving 7/8ths of the way there, I let off the gas to enter an off ramp with a sharp turn, and felt the transmission do a strange downshift - knew something was now happening. Hit the gas and had ZERO power! Check engine light blinking! Got a misfire - sweeet! Fuel trims went 50% positive short term. Had a bit of an, "Oh CRAP, maybe this thing ain't gonna make it" moment. Got to dad's - I had switched to misfire live data when I got on his street (SHHH!) and saw #'s 2 & 3 counting up like crazy. Once I got there I tried to yank those 2 plug wires. WTH? Am I getting THAT weak??? OH! There's 2 stupid metal bars across both pairs holding them in place!! Had to shut it down, run to dad's basement for some tools. Everything is everywhere, nothing put back (Role reversal with age, lol) ... had to make 2 trips to the basement which was a long walk from the car, FINALLY found a friggin 10mm with an extension so I could reach the stupid nuts holding the bars in place. Got the bars off. Fired her back up, removed 2 & 3 and heard NOTHING in the holes! Removed 1, then 4, and heard the crack of the spark echoing in each hole. Sweet! Bad coil or bad ignitor (Which was replaced by another shop barely 3 years ago). Both 2 & 3 share a coil. Glad I found the issue! Driving back home on 2 cylinders was fun - thought the damned thing was gonna burst into flames! Couldn't reach the injectors to unplug them - buried under the intake against the firewall. Had to turn off the A/C and take backroads, then it was happier. Cat was probably glowing! Was already damaged from prior dead misses years ago (Been throwing a 0420 forever), so the damage was already done. Going to check all that out on Tuesday when I get back at it. Car is age-exempt here, so maybe there will be an incident with a pipe and hammer ..... ;)

I seen a few cases where blown bulbs were popping the fuse. I'm guessing the remaining parts of the filament were somehow shorting out intermittently. Personally I'd replaced any blown bulbs before giving the vehicle back and see if the problem returns

Did you try changing to the new harness and see if it blows immediately like the customer had happen

Well that "blows"... or not! Lol! Intermittent electrical issues do suck and when they finally occur it's like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Duplicating that scenario as to when it occur and how it occurs can leave anybody scratching their head. They ain't easy and sometimes it's more time consuming then they're worth! Great video as always!

Sound quality is great now, thanks!

I had an intermittent short in a Freestar. It could go for weeks or a few minutes. It turned out to be a very small brake fluid leak. There was a pressure switch to turn off the cruise control on the master cylinder. That switch would leak a drop once in a while and fall on a connector on the fender well. It took me weeks to figure it out.

Only thing I could say to do would possibly be add a auto resetting circuit breaker in the fuse position.

Eric, I was looking all over my house for a cricket, it is on the video! Lol

This is the peanut gallery. I am not the person on the hook for the repair. I work on aircraft and have a lot of experience with intermittent wiring. I also have no budget restriction $$$$ when it comes to troubleshooting or repair. Single wire OTDR or a hand crank megger ohm meter (not the digital version) can help after isolating single runs. Crank Megger can sometimes take an intermittent problem and turn it into a continous problem you can see and then easily troubleshoot. I cannot do this due to having to comply to aircraft drawings, but have done this while aircraft is on the ground for maintenance. I used pins and sockets to prevent cutting wiring harness. (Required to restore aircraft to drawings prior to flight).. Temporarily add some branch circuit fuses. Which ever one blows is potentially your bad branch. Now matter what, the problem will always be simple in hindsight. Good luck.

These are tough, wiggle and inspect everything is all you can do until it gets worse.

Same stuff happens in IT. Customers don’t seem to understand that if I can’t duplicate their problem then there is not a ton you can do.. even less with automotive.. not a ton of logging like on a computer or other piece of IT equipment.

Eric you have an intermittent short look under the front seat!

My biggest nightmare was trying to make repairs on a 1975 Fiat 124 Sport Coupe that had been stolen that had no ignition switch and the junk yard had wired it every way but loose! No intrumentation, wires burning up, fuel guage inop, burnt dash, no tach along with guages going ape chit and an oil pump cast aluminum oil sump stem that completely broken off wth a dented oil pan and wow, it took a month of sundays to get that mess corrected but it all worked out!

There is a shorted light bulb in the rear. In one position, the bulb is an intermittent short; rotate it 180 degrees and it is a hard short. When he installed the new harness the owner rotated the bulb to the always shorted position.

my guy can fix anything, i refuse to believe the title, will report back in 14 minutes once i watch it

Great vid! Glad to hear that Toby the 10 pound shop cricket is still alive and well! ;)