How to fix a car cigarette lighter that’s not working

When the tyre inflator I ordered from eBay arrived, I was very excited to try it as soon as but I never thought that would uncover a hidden problem in my car. The moment I plugged it into my car lighter and didn’t see the product’s LCD illuminate when I switched the ON button, I thought it was strange. I tried everything I could, and referred to the manual and the Internet several times to no avail. I honestly thought the product was faulty until I tried it in another car and to my utter surprise everything worked as expected. So then it occurred to me the car lighter in my vehicle had a problem.

To confirm my suspicion, I tried to charge my iPhone through an FM Transmitter device which works with lighters and that was unsuccessful. I therefore had two choices before me; take it to a mechanic or try to fix it myself. I searched for the problem online first and in most of the cases where the car lighter was not working, it had something to do with a blown up fuse.

So the challenge was to find that particular fuse and see if replacing it would cure the fault. I drive an automatic Nissan Tiida which was imported from Japan. When I referred to the car manual, it said there were 3 fuse boxes – 2 under the bonnet near the engine and 1 under the dashboard near the driver’s seat. It was easy to find the first fuse box under the bonnet as it was near the battery but on the cover, there were wipers, horn, ABS, keyless and other various controls listed except the one I was after. Frustratingly enough, I couldn't locate the other fuse box. So I move to the inside of the car.

When you pull the fuse compartment cover under the dashboard, you will notice a map of the fuses. It’s supposed to tell you where each fuse is located (through numbers I think) and what they do. Unfortunately for me, the writing was in Japanese (or Chinese) and I was unable to read them. However from my research, it seems that most car lighters use a 15A fuse. I noticed only three 15A and around ten 10A fuses. So I decided to check each one to see if there was any damage inside.

On the last one I checked, I found the wire has been broken; the obvious sign the fuse has blown away. I was 100% certain that was the problem why the lighter in the vehicle failed to work properly and I needed a replacement to confirm the same. So I swapped another 15A fuse from the same box; the idea was to use a good fuse with the same rating into the one with the problem. And you've probably guessed it right – that solved the problem. As soon as I started the car and plugged the RAC 630 tyre inflator in the car cigarette lighter, the LCD on the device lit up and it started working.

I'm very happy I managed to DIY the whole thing myself and thus avoided the trip to a garage as well as save myself some money.

Some tips

• Always use a fuse with the same rating to replace another one (not lower or higher than the ampere specified)
• I found a small set of pliers perfect to remove the fuses from the car; some people have been able to use tweezers instead but they didn't work for me.
• Many car lighter adapters have a fuse in them to protect the devices, so check these as well.

If you have any helpful advice to share, please leave a comment.