Messed Up Interior Lights.

[hkspowers]

Ok so I have been having a problem lately in my climate control cluster. The lights have been randomly turning off and on and at first I just thought it was a bad cluster so I bought another one. Well Shortly after my speed o cluster started doing the same thing. And when I turn on my blinkers sometimes all of my interior cluster lights flash real bright for a second then go back to the way they were. I checked all of my wires to see if there are any exposed or something obvious and I can't seem to find anything. The fuses seem ok. So I am at a loss anyone have any ideas? My ride is looking so ghetto with this interior light problem. Also I have a nice multimeter but I am not sure how to use it. lol I bought it because I figured if I need one I might as well get a nice one. It has many settings but I am not sure which one I need to turn the dial to to read the wires. Anyway anyone have any ideas on what could be causing this? Do you think if I brought it to Honda they would actually be able to sort this out? Or would they just waste my time? This is getting to the point that i want to buy another civic and just transfer ll of my mods to that car. lol

[hkspowers]

Well I did a lot of research and it seems that a faulty dimmer switch can cause these problems. So I checked my dimmer switch and sure enough it was not functioning. So I removed the dimmer switch, and all of the cluster lights just turned off. So I ordered a new dimmer switch. I hope this fixes it I will keep everyone posted.

[teal_dx]

my 96 is doing something similar. The same thing happens once in a while when I use the turn signals, and the climate control lights only work once in a while.

Thanks for posting, you may have saved me a headache

[Grat]

yup i was having the same problem...i would mess with my dimmer switch and they would come back on....so i got a new switch and haven't had a problem since

[suspendedHatch]

You need to jumper two of the wires in the mean time because w/out that dimmer switch you wont have your parking lights!

There are three wires. I believe it's red, black, and red/black. Jumper the red and the black and leave the red/black alone.

If the dimmer switch isn't your problem or for the other people that have similar problems I would say that it's probably a ground issue. I know that up high and to the right of the steering column is a cluster ground on a 10mm bolt.

Also, if you have an aftermarket stereo make sure that the illumination wire is not hooked up. This wire is orange on aftermarket stereos.

[hkspowers]

Well after an insane wait for my switch to be delivered it finally arrived new as promised, and I plugged it in and well..... It worked, but it did not fix my problem of my cluster lights going out. It did however make the one remaining light dim so I knew the switch was working. Well I finally decided as a last effort to take my cluster out and give her one last look over see if I spot anything, and while I was back there I replaced a few random bulbs with a different type of led. Well I installed it back in and I noticed some more lights were working and some different ones than before. So I decided to leave the lights on and fool with the LEDs, (I do not recommend doing this as it can cause a short) I was doing it as a last resort, and to make a long story short it seems that I had some of the LEDs in reversed, since they are polarized they only work if they are put in correctly. So I just flipped the lights that were not working and BAM! lights all working perfect and bright as hell! And the kicker the "electrical Surge" I kept getting when I used my blinkers seems to have been solved with the new dimmer switch! So all problems solved now!