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I pulled over briefly on a side street while dropping off a friend last night, shut off the engine in our 2010 Chevrolet Camaro 2SS and flipped on the hazards. The dome light immediately began to flicker.
Moments later, I reenacted the incident for your edification, but please be warned that the video is not HD and was shot at night, hence, it's not sharp.
Erin Riches, Senior Editor @ 21,379 miles
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cruiserhead1 says:
04:45 PM, 09/14/10
looks like the hazards and dome light share the same ground?
maybe the dome needs a resistor to solve that.
Odd that this is not sorted out from the factory.
dg0472 says:
04:48 PM, 09/14/10
I'd say more like a bad cell in the battery, but since it looks like the headlights were on too, I'm not all that sure it's a big issue.
vt8919 says:
06:14 PM, 09/14/10
Both our cars do that, too. A battery has only so much power to go around.
kevm14 says:
06:33 PM, 09/14/10
It seems to be running in your video...that doesn't look normal.
firstwagon says:
06:43 PM, 09/14/10
cruiserhead1 nailed it. Common ground. (surprised GM missed that one)
Battery has plenty of power for minor lights.
kevm14 says:
06:54 PM, 09/14/10
I see the I/P dimming with the dome light. It looks too severe to be normal.
hybris says:
08:52 PM, 09/14/10
Put it on a trickle charger for a night and see what happens.
onramp says:
10:26 PM, 09/14/10
The battery has plenty of power for the lights, but it does not have infinite response time to seamlessly send that power to mask fluctuations in current (blinkers on-off-on). It's not unlike when you put big, current-hungry audio amplifiers on a stock charging system. The bass hits, and all sorts of lights/illuminated dials start to dim in sync to it. Therein is when the giant capacitors get added to the system...to fill in those transient surges that the battery is too slow to power.
...then again, maybe they just skimped on wire gauge on non-essential, low-power devices to save a few pennies? Would it surprise anyone, given the state of cash-strapped car makers?
fushigi says:
05:22 AM, 09/15/10
The battery has enough juice to turn over a big V8; running a few lights or FTM a few dozen won't phase it in the least. In fact, according to Pep Boys the V8 Camaro has a 730 CCA battery so it has over 8700 watts of power.
No car I've had in the past 20 or so years would have this behavior; IMO that's a simple and annoying engineering goof on GM's part.
the_big_al says:
07:50 AM, 09/15/10
My '01 S10 doesn't do that. (course it also has a MUCH bigger battery than stock) However I also have a 250W amp and sub and it also doesn't make the lights flicker even while the truck isn't on. So there is something about the wiring that isn't quite right. Not a bad thing, just the way the circuits are probably wired. I can turn the volume up to 20 and have the bass pounding the seat and still barely a flicker of the headlights if they are on and the interior dome. With the truck running, I have no flicker whatsoever. None. Stock charging system aside from the larger battery (830 CCA).
cartester16 says:
09:24 AM, 09/15/10
Umm, doesn't this car have the gauge-pack? What does the voltometer read with the car off? Does it dip with the lights?