Ok so I just got my stereo put in today and now my dash lights wont work. They worked lastnight when i was driveing around. I tried the "interment brightness control" button and it didnt do anything. Could it have anything to do with the stereo i just put in? All i can say is that it is driving me insane

 

Check fuses, remove deck and see if they work. Could be a coincidence, or if you hooked stuff up wrong, you might have connected the wrong wire to the illumination lead blowing the fuse. For the record, while your dash lights are out, your tail lights are out as well so you could easially get pulled over at night. Could be the switch as well. Been there, done that. Luckilly I found a working switch at the boneyard on the first visit. Switch your parking lights on and off repeatedly and see if they ever turn on. Sometimes I would have to sit there and switch the parking lights on and off about 30 times before they came on. It's a real pita.

 

It could be a blown fuse. My 2003's dash lights use the same fuse as the tail lights. Check your fuse box for a blown fuse. It will be one of the "tail light" fuses under the hood. I don't know if this is the case on my 93, but I don't see why they would change something like this.

 

you probably blew a fuse, which IS the same one as the tail lights.

 

I had that same thing happen to me too because my climate control shorted out. I didn't even bother checking the rear light fuse at first, until a friend told me that my rear lights were out. I replaced the damn thing but it just burned out again and again, so I just put in a 15 fuse instead of 10. Kind of risky, but it does the trick and I know people who done worse.

 

No offense but this is something you really don't want to do. Fuses don't blow for no reason. You only went up by 5 which should be ok. But you run the risk of burning wires, shorting or causing a fire since there is something that is causing a voltage spike to fry a fuse.

 

I agree, something is wrong that is causing that fuse to blow. When a fuse blows, it prevents too much voltage from traveling from one source to another. A cheap, 10 cent fuse, is what prevents something of much greater expense from frying itself. Think of it as a surge protector for your expensive home theater system when lightning strikes. What would you rather loose, $8,000 system or a $25 surge protector.

 

I had the same experience and it was a twisted lead on one of the tiny micro bulbs behind a dash button. I couldn't believe it would trip the fuse...

but to OP, replace fuse. if it burns again, then you need to find your short and correct it. are you sure your harness is wired correctly?

 

I don't want to nit pick here, but there is a difference between voltage, and amperage. Our cars have a 12 volt battery (sometimes puts out a bit more, sometimes a bit less, but approximately 12 volts) and an alternator that maintains system voltage around 14.5 volts. The fuses we use can handle hundreds of volts of electricity. A fuse doesn't blow from a voltage spike, or from too much voltage, the only thing that too much voltage could possibly cause would be a failure of the plastic insulation (the body of the fuse) and a resulting arc from the metal part of the fuse to some nearby metal such as other wires, or the body of the car.

When a fuse blows it is because too much amperage is being drawn through it. Amperage is what heats up the wiring, and left unchecked can cause a fire. If you are blowing fuses regularly, it is because too much amperage (also called current) is being drawn through the circuit. This can happen when you add power accessories to the car, and tap power from an existing circuit, or when a component is failing, or when there is a problem with the wiring, such as a short to ground. Using a larger fuse allows more current to flow through the wiring than it was originally designed to carry. While it is true that there is usually some margin of safety, and you probably won't burn up your car buy using a fuse that is 5 amps larger, it is still a bad idea. You need to determine what is causing the higher than normal amperage in that circuit, and fix the problem.

 

Think? I recently replaced some of the burned out twist base dash bulbs in my climate control with LED ones. All 4 were burned out so I replaced them all. But aren't LEDssupposed to be way more energy-efficient than original incandescent ones? Yet when I turned the lights on, my climate control lit up for 5 seconds and then the fuse burned out. I know a guy who used a 30 fuse instead of 20 because his shifter kept burning the fuse, so I figured 5 would be fine for a time being, until I wire my climate control LEDs to something else that's on a different line.

 

LEDs do consume MUCH less wattage than a standard bulb does in order to put out the same amount of light.

 

listen you might learn something from this guy