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Hey guys, Back once again. I was on my way home from work about 40 mins ago and noticed my insturment panel light is not working. I can’t see the engine temp, battery gauge, fuel gauge, odometor, etc. The swtich works when I go to turn on the interior lights, But the insturment panel wont light up/dim. I checked all the fuses, all of them are good. The only two fuses I am skeptical about have a metal casing around them so I can’t tell if they are bad or not. I am about sick of this POS car, I am currently saving up for a down payment on a 2007 toyota camry. I believe I need to replace the light for the insturment panel, But if another thing goes out on this POS car someone is going to find the empty shell of a 1994 Buick Century smoldering in the middle of a abandoned field.
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spounds like your switch went bad or maybe your relay thats where i would start even thou you can turn your interior lights on i doesnt mean that the switch is good. let us know how you make out
I had a similar issue on a Mustang. It turned out the rheostat switch was bad. I diagnosed it using a wiring diagram and using a jumper wire to bypass the switch. When i did this, the cluster lights illuminated.
A replacement switch fixed the issue.
1+ on dreamers post.
That is probably the first thing i would check too.
I’ve had a problem like this with a dodge neon before and a switch from a junkyard solved it.A lot of cars have a dimmer switch of some kind that the entire gauge cluster is routed through. As Dreamer said they can go bad. Rheostats are also known as potentiometers. Basically it’s an adjustable switch that you control the voltage and thus the brightness of the gauges. So +1 for Dreamer here as well but wanted to clarify that they are more commonly known by a non-lay person in cars as dimmer switches.
If all of your gauges still work correctly and the only thing not working are all the lights then probably the dimmer. If it’s a few lights out then could be just the bulbs burning out. If the lights and gauges aren’t working then probably a harness connection.
If it is a bad potentiometer, adjuster resistor, you can just jumps it with a fixed resistor and save yourself a few bucks but use at least a 5 watt resistor. But my money is going to be on a bad bulb
Well I talked to my mechanic and he said something similar. The insturment panel cluster has 10-12 light bulbs and since they all went out at once its an eletrical issue. The car isn’t mine, I’ve driven it since spring of 2009 and put over twice what the vehicle is worth in parts alone, not to mention the $700 in labor I spent on issues I wasn’t capable of fixing myself. Since the car isn’t mine, I told the owner what the issue is and that if he wants it fixed, to do it himself.. So… No more money will be put into the car, except for a tow-truck to deliver the vehicle to its owner after it kicks the bucket.
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