Interior Light problem .... help

This is happening on a 2002 Continental

I can't shut off the interior lights at night after pulling the key out of the ignition. They come on and stay on. If I turn them off on the light module they just come back on again. It only seems to happen at night (I think). Tonight, I got out of the car and as soon as I locked it with the remote the lights came on. (I have a battery charger on it now). In trying different combinations I found that by hitting the keypad 7-8 / 9-0 keys (the combo for locking the doors) the interior lights went out however after about 10 minutes they have come back on again .... this is so weird.

BTW ... when the car is running the interior lights go out as per normal. It's just when it's stopped and the key is removed from the ignition. This has just started happening out of the blue. Was working fine for the last 2 months (I bought the car in December). No reports of this problem from past service records.

Has anyone got any insight into what this problem might be?

Welcome!

Not that familiar with the '02 Conti but sounds remarkably like a bad door switch in the latch. You may want to try some WD40 liberally applied to the door latch mechanism.

Thanks JP ... will do.

I also wonder if it might be the light module? Tougher to diagnose without replacement. Will work on the latch switch first.

I know those modules can be a PITA but a lot of times they are mis-diagnosed.

We found the problem .... turns out the door keypad was malfunctioning. After replacement all seems fine. Weird one. I suspect once of the switches was shorting out.

It's not really that weird. Here's a quote from another Continental thread:

"Continentals and Town Cars have a chronic problem with water entry (= corrosion) into the keypad buttons. The fact that not all of yours illuminate or respond makes me sure that your keypad is junk.

If the 7/8 and 9/0 contacts are shorted simultaneously, the DDM will believe it's recieving a Lock command. It's not always smart enough to know the signals it's getting are wrong. It will keep trying and trying and trying to obey.
If any button's contacts appear closed to it, the DDM may forward that information to the LCM and request interior lights on as part of the Illuminated Entry/Exit programming."

Thanks for the info FrankyX. My 95 Grand Marquis with 180K on it has never had a keypad problem winter or summer. Rock solid. Maybe I got lucky with that car? I use the keypad all the time. I don't know why every car on the planet doesn't have them? The good news is that a new keypad replacement is very affordable and easy to install with harness and plug. We'll see how things work out as time goes on.

Don, I'm sorry I'm giving you this info after the fact, but I haven't had the chance to get online in a few days. Still, I'm glad to see you got to the root of the problem and found the repair to be fairly easy.

It's always a pleasure to meet a new member with the technical expertise to do their own repairs rather than simply asking vague questions.

Welcome to LOD!