Worrying back lights

Please be gentle on a newbie! Bought a P-reg S40 1.8 late last year in a hurry, after someone wrote off my old car. As a result, I think I've bought a bit of a problematic specimen. Old posts here have given me pointers over most of my problems, but this one is worrying me:

It's all to do with rear passenger-side lights. The brake light went, and was duly replaced.

A few days later, the indicator stopped working whilst I was waiting for someone with it on for a few minutes. It came back to life when I returned to the car later on - it was like it had overheated. It did the same thing a couple of weeks later, with the same effect, then again the next week - but this time, stayed broken. I replaced the bulb, and it's now fine.

A couple of weeks later, the tail-light has failed. And now the brake light is failing again - intermittantly. It stops working every few days, but starts working again after I've been driving for about 15 minutes. The reverse light has also failed, but has also come back to life.

The connections all look fine on the bulb panels - does anyone have any idea what could be causing all these problems? It's driving me mental!

My vote would go to a bad ground somewhere - not sure where the rear lights are grounded though.

[vjck_uk]

I agree a bad earth would be the first thing to look at.
If you can't see where the earth goes to ie dissapears into the loom,then just run another wire to anywhere on the body you can find up an unpainted bit of metal.

I'll give that a try - thanks! The car was owned from new by a farmer, and I reckon a lot of the problems with it (ie steering wheel has free movement when stationary, vibrates whilst driving despite re-balance) come from being driven in rough territory. So I'm guessing a wire could well have been jolted loose...

Will let you know how I get on...