I have a 1990 4 dr civic DX. After I turned on the headlights, both the headlights and tail lights are on. However, when I put the car on reverse, only the headlights stay on but the tail lights are all gone and stay off even after I switch back to 'Drive'. At the beginning I may got those lights back on after shaking the light switch stick behind the steering wheel. Now no matter what I do, it won't come on ( my brake lights will still come on when I step on my brake). It happens everytime when I put my car on reverse to back out from a parking spot. If I drove forward (i.e. no reverse), the tail lights will stay on. Does anyone out there know what happened to my car?

 

Well if you jiggled the turn signal lever to make them come on, I would say you have either a nasty short or a wiring problem.