Being a newbie is no excuse! just kidding, Hey I had a similar prob on one of my e36's but it only happened once. I was driving my euro spec e36 320 in Sicily one night and hit a pothole. This wan't any ordinary pothole, it was a canyon! I swear I seen a Fiat down in there. Anyway, I hit the dang thing so hard that the dome light came on and stayed on! I continued to drive in the hopes it would turn off which It finally did when I opened and shut my door. It never did it again after that but I did have to replace a wheel. I was running B&G Autobahn Springs on Sachs sport shocks/struts and 17" style 42's with 40 series Michelins.
If it was a fuse, they wouldn't come on at all and you would notice other features not functioning like a cigarette lighter or central doorlocks or whatever else shared that fuse. And since your dome light was also having issues I would rule out the bulbs and check your switches in the door jams. It's more than likely going bad and I would guess it's the driver's side since it gets more use. There's no way to check it while it's installed since the lights will come on if you open the door, so I'd just change it since it's probably a cheap part. If you want to fix it later you could just switch your dome light off and remove the bulbs from the floor lights. I wouldn't remove the fuse since you'll lose any other features on that circuit. |