I have a 98 DX coupe with the bare minimum of amenities, and have always been bothered by my car's lack of a trunk light.

I was wondering if there was a way to make use of the trunk open sensor to act as a switch to turn an auxilary 12V light source on and off?

in other words, trunk open, light on.

trunk closed, light off.

without having to use a specific switch.

Also, what's the best place to get a 12V source of power back there?

 

Look in the DIY section, I just wrote a DIY on wiring and at the bottom there is a small section on just that kind of a thing.

 

slight problem with that.

my car does not to my knowledge have a trunk light in the first place

(lets put it this way, if it does, the thing is hidden in such a way that I've never seen it)

 

you should have a trunk light maybe its just burnt out but you can splice other 12 v lights into the same power and ground of the existing trunk light

 

base model dx coupe... the only amenities the car has are air conditioning and automatic tranny...

hell it's an am/fm stereo without cassette or cd

 

do you have a dome light?

 

yes...

but that's it... trust me... no trunk light... i'm sure i'd have seen and or/found it while changing the speakers in my rear deck

 

well you can splice into the power and ground of the dome light run the wires under your headliner down the rear piller and into the trunk to a light but that would work when theres a door open not just the trunk being open it might be easier to just put a switch in the trunk too....but of course its your call

 

problem with that will i think be that my dome light is not on when my trunk is open

 

yea thats what i said

i dont believe it would be much of a hastle to put a switch back there