[SE95]

First question - When I open the doors, the cabin lights for the rear of the car tun on but not the front. They only turn on if I do it manually. Is this normal? Is there an easy way to make it so they turn on when the doors are open? Could this just be a fuse or maybe a switch that I haven't discovered yet?

Second question - There is a switch on top of the steering column that seems to do nothing but turn on the brake lights. Does it do anything else? I'm guessing this just a safety thing in addition to the emergency flashing lights but it took me forever to figure out what the heck it did.

First question... you are 100% sure you have the domelights set to "door"? There should be a switch on the light assemblies themselves that say "Off" "On" and "Door".

Second question... that switch turns on the parking lights. It is meant to be used when you are sitting in a parking lot and want to have the lights on but not have the engine running (as the key needs to be turned to "run" to turn the headlights on under normal circumstances).

 

[SE95]

Hmm. I've never had to deal with a sunroof car, so I'm not sure.

EDIT: Unless you are confusing the front dome lights with the map lights. The actual dome light (at least in my car) is in the center of the passenger area, kind of directly above and maybe a little bit behind the center console. My car has maplights in an overhead console right over the center stack. Those do not turn on automatically.

 

[SE95]

Ahh, that would be it. All of the other cars I've owned had those turn on when the door was open as well. The ones at the center of the car really only light up the rear, which is why I was calling them the rear lights.

So new question - Is there a way to get the map lights to turn on when I open the doors?

I'm not sure, I've never bothered to check. Mine lights up the front okay but I think that is because I don't have a sunroof. Both of my Grand Prixs lit up the map lights with the doors (my old '95 GP had maplights on the mirror as the only front dome lights since there was a sunroof where the dome lights usually go).