98 town car my brake lights both turn signals work my hazards work, but my running tail lights don't work

Short circuit most likely in rear light wiring

Suspect the multi-function switch. (turnsignal) these fail a lot.

Check for Power on your License Plate Light, more than likely you have lost GROUND

Turn Signals, Do the Front Work and the Back don't? If NONE then FLASHER FUSE

Could be the headlight switch.
The switch has two sets of contacts for the parking lights, the park position and headlight position.
You may need to check the circuit at the switch to see if you are loosing power when the switch is moved from park to head.

Sound like a flasher device go to bad; check in fuse box and replace it to solve this problem.

The turn signals and the brake lights go through the hazard switch. Try cycling it a few times and see if that solves the problem. If the fuses are good and the 4way's don't work, I would suspect that switch.

I'm checking into that same problem for a early 90's buick ( it's a GM also ) , I've checked the obvious ( bulbs, flasher,fuses,etc) all where fine. I assume your front turn signals work if you manually operate the turn signal switch or put on the hazard switch? The Buick's rear lights won't come on even with the hazard switch on. When you say one tail light has been out for some time, do you mean the brake/signal light or park/running lights? The Buick was like that with one side out for a while ( brake/signal light) but both the rear park/running lights work. Now, I've narrowed the problem down to the turn signal switch. I'd bet money on it. I just have to dig out my steering wheel puller, bite the bullet and get 'er done. You should be carefull if you're attempting that repair yourself ( AIRBAG ), use a manual. ( You could do a quick test by trying the turn signal while you pull the bottom of the arm toward you,move some of the wiring in the column near the arm,etc. I did and the signals started working. Could be the switch,dirt or a broken/loose wire. there's a lot of wiring going through the column and a lot of movement ( turn signal,high beam,cruise, then add tilt) Hope this helped.

you could either have a front marker/signal lamp w/lamp grounded and causing this,remember...when tail lights are on so are your frt parking/marker lights on also..... other than that you could have a feed wire worn thru and grounding out to the frame

sounds like a bad turn signal switch, wiggle it , just a little bit,... see if some of the lights start to work. do your turn lights work correctly??