Front interior lights

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awdVibeNoobie
Posts: 38
Joined: Sat Jul 20, 2019 6:56 am
Location: Michigan

Front interior lights

Post by awdVibeNoobie »

I hate how there isn't any front interior lights when you open the doors. So the only interior lights is the dome light for the rear seating area and the cargo light? Has anyone added in other interior lights to come on when you open the doors?
03 awd Vibe my backup vehicle
Bookworm
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Location: Houston, TX

Re: Front interior lights

Post by Bookworm »

There's a (not cheap) rear view mirror replacement you can install which was common on the early Vibes, with driver/passenger reading lights, but that's about it.
Last edited by Bookworm on Thu Aug 01, 2019 9:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
awdVibeNoobie
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Location: Michigan

Re: Front interior lights

Post by awdVibeNoobie »

Wait what!?! The early Vibes has a rear view mirror with map lights built in?!
03 awd Vibe my backup vehicle
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joatmon
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Re: Front interior lights

Post by joatmon »

If you got the moon&tunes package, the front map light is built into the sunroof controls. If you didn't, then the interior rear view mirror has two manual map lights built into the bottom of the mirror. Neither variant is tied to the dome/door ajar lights.

Mine has a sunroof and I hooked up a lighted mirror to do kinda what you're interested in ( viewtopic.php?f=29&t=46855&p=524112)
Last edited by joatmon on Thu Aug 08, 2019 5:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Bookworm
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Re: Front interior lights

Post by Bookworm »

My 03 had the built in map lights. My 07 does not, but it has the tube for the wires under the headliner. I haven't yanked the dome light out completely to check for a clean path to put one in.
awdVibeNoobie
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Location: Michigan

Re: Front interior lights

Post by awdVibeNoobie »

joatmon wrote: Thu Aug 01, 2019 5:20 pm If you got the moon&tunes package, the front map light is built into the sunroof controls. If you didn't, then the interior rear view mirror has two manual map lights built into the bottom of the mirror. Neither variant is tied to the dome/door ajar lights.

Mine has a sunroof and I hooked up a lighted mirror to do kinda what you're interested in ( viewtopic.php?f=29&t=46855&p=524112&hil ... ht#p524112 )
I have no idea if my Vibe has the moon & tunes package. It does have a sunroof with a map light next to the sunroof buttons.

Searching on Google I came up with this number (E11015315) for the rear view mirror with built in map lights.
03 awd Vibe my backup vehicle
ehoff121
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Re: Front interior lights

Post by ehoff121 »

awdVibeNoobie wrote: Fri Aug 02, 2019 12:16 pm It does have a sunroof with a map light next to the sunroof buttons.
That's the Moon part of Moon & Tunes. Look in your cargo area on the passenger side for a bulge with a speaker on it- that's a subwoofer for the Tunes part. There's also an amplifier under the passenger seat.

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(Photo Credit: Derf)
2005 Pontiac Vibe AWD - Platinum
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joatmon
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Re: Front interior lights

Post by joatmon »

ehoff121 wrote: Sat Aug 03, 2019 7:45 am awdVibeNoobie . Look in your cargo area on the passenger side for a bulge with a speaker on it- that's a subwoofer for the Tunes part. There's also an amplifier under the passenger seat.
awdVibeNoobie has an 03, the Moon&Tunes didn't include a subwoofer until the 2005's. In addition to the sunroof and amp, 2003 M&T's did also include tweeters, mounted inside on the front doors where the side mirrors mount.

If I remember correctly, one side of the bulb in the sunroof controls gets a constant +12V and the switch connects/disconnects the other side of the bulb to ground. Might be possible to modify things to make it work on demand or on door open, I haven't tried that so I don't know how involved it would be. Would at a minimum require some mod to the sunroof control light and running a wire from it to somewhere to pick up the ground controlling the other dome lights
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andrewclaus
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Re: Front interior lights

Post by andrewclaus »

I've never owned a car with a front seat dome light. That's probably to prevent glare to the driver. My '07 base Vibe has the map lights so maybe I'm lucky. It took a few weeks to notice those lights.
awdVibeNoobie
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Re: Front interior lights

Post by awdVibeNoobie »

ehoff121 wrote: Sat Aug 03, 2019 7:45 am
awdVibeNoobie wrote: Fri Aug 02, 2019 12:16 pm It does have a sunroof with a map light next to the sunroof buttons.
That's the Moon part of Moon & Tunes. Look in your cargo area on the passenger side for a bulge with a speaker on it- that's a subwoofer for the Tunes part. There's also an amplifier under the passenger seat.

Image

(Photo Credit: Derf)
Ah ok. I don't have a subwoofer in the cargo area. In that pic you posted, it looks like there are 2 cargo lights near the subwoofer?
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joatmon
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Re: Front interior lights

Post by joatmon »

joatmon wrote: Sun Aug 04, 2019 9:36 am If I remember correctly, one side of the bulb in the sunroof controls gets a constant +12V and the switch connects/disconnects the other side of the bulb to ground.
I looked at mine, and I did NOT remember correctly

The sunroof control bulb gets a constant ground, nad the switch connects/disconnects +12V

I can think of a couple of ways to get the sunroof light to work as a dome light.

The first way is the easiest. Tap into the dome light ground coming off the dimmer switch, and run a wire from it up behind the driver a pillar trim to the sunroof controls. Cut the wire that provides ground to the sunroof light, and connect it up to the wire from the dimmer. This would result in the sunroof light working as a dome light, but would only work when the sunroof light switch was pressed (on). You would lose the ability to turn the sunroof light on independently of the other dome lights.

A variant of this would be to add a switch in one of the blanks by the dimmer to switch the new wire running to the sunroof light between the dome ground from the dimmer, or a constant ground, that would allow selecting the sunroof light to be either auto dome or just normal manual select. Probably not worth it

It should also be possible to have the sunroof light switch work as normal and also have the sunroof light come on with the dome lights, but in addition to running a wire for the dome light ground, you'd also have to pop the pins out of the connector on the sunroof control module to swap polarity so the switch switches ground instead of +12V, nad possibly add some diodes so that hitting the sunroof light switch wouldn't turn on all the dome lights. I don't know if its worth it, guess it depends on how often you want to turn on just the sunroof light when turning on all the domes would be undesirable

Here's where I picked up the dome ground from the back of the dimmer switch. You wan to splice the new wire in addition, not cut the wire. You still want it to go where it used to go, but also now to the new place as well.
dimmerdomeground.jpg
dimmerdomeground.jpg (70.25 KiB) Viewed 1602 times
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