Hey guys,
I've got a 1997 Mitsubishi Galant ES Edition (~97k miles) and I was hoping to get some troubleshooting advice for a turn signal problem that started up yestereday please.
How it happened and description:
I was driving on the interstate and everything was pretty normal except that it was raining very hard. I needed to pass someone so I turned on my left turn signal. At that moment I noticed that my left turn signal didn't come on, in fact it was my right turn signal that had. After this there was no position on the stick that would allow me to have anything other than a right turn signal (including the middle setting), although the stick seemed to behave regularly (same stopping points and my brights still worked along with every headlight setting controlled by that stick). The only thing I could do to avoid looking like one of those people that forgets their turn signals on for 50 miles is to turn my hazard lights on. Since there's different ways that a right turn signal can be "stuck on" I'll elaborate: It's ticking as it would if I was using my right turn signal, but I can't turn it off, nor does the left turn signal come on when I move the stick to that position.
What I've tried: The next day after a little research I went inside the fuse box near the driver side knee area and checked for a signal relay, but they had a plastic piece in there so it couldn't have been that. I went to Autozone and the guy there told me that I should check the flasher, doing a little more research and searching around I was able to find it inside my dash and took that in for a replacement. They had a generic that fit the slot so I got that and unfortunately when I tried it I was greeted with a right turn signal yet again. The only real difference is that the generic flasher ticks faster than the one that came with the car but I'm sure there's nothing special about that. I also checked the turn signal fuse and everything appeared fine, just in case I replaced it with a spare to no avail. Under the fuse box in the engine compartment it doesn't seem like anything in there is relevant, however there's so many abbreviations that i'm not familiar with it'd be pretty hard to tell short of taking all of the fuses out with the car running.
Is there anything else that I'm missing? I'm a little intimidated by the bunches of wires near the steering wheel so I haven't checked for nicks and severed wires. I feel like I'm flying blind so I'd like to get a little expert help before I move on to the next fidgeting step. I got the car used a few years ago and the service manual wasn't included.
I would greatly appreciate any leads or knowledgable posts about how the turn signal system works in my particular car. I'll do my best to keep you guys updated on the progress of my repair.
Thanks guys (and gals),
Jamison