Many crown victoria police interceptors have the "dark car" option enabled. When a door is opened, the domelight will not illuminate, but the overhead interior light will operate when the headlight switch is pushed in to turn on the domelight. At first, I thought the stealthy "dark car" option was a neat feature, but it quickly became an annoyance after a couple of weeks. If you're observant, you'll notice that the car does know when the drivers door is open because the key in ignition buzzer engages when keys are in ignition and drivers door is opened, and it also enages if the headlights are left on and the drivers door is opened.

To re-enable the domelights to turn on when a door is opened, seperate the blue male and female single wire connectors on the passengers side of the car under the glove box. Then disconnect the battery leads from the car battery, leave disconnected for a couple minutes, and reconnect. "Dark car" option should now be disabled. Note: A pair of pliers may be useful to seperate the connectors, they can be very stubborn and not want to pull apart from one another easily. If you get desperate, cutting the single black wire running out of the connector will work as well. Make sure to tape up the exposed ends if you choose this route.

This article is written with 1995 and later crown victoria owners in mind. 1994 and prior crown vics use a conventional parallel/series wiring setup for domelight illumination. 1995 and later ones use a lighting control module and disable the domelights by grounding one of the LCM pins when domelights are not desired.

Note: Instead of conventional pin switches on the door jamb, 1992 and later crown vics use a door ajar switch located inside the door on top of the latch mechanism. Is not uncommon for these switches to fail and short to ground, so domelight illuminates constantly and will not shut off. Also, some police departments cut the wire running to the drivers door ajar switch since this disables the key in ignition buzzer and parking light reminder buzzer.