Instrument Lights Not Working At All.

[neilthephot]

Hi all, The instrument panel on my 97 tdi have packed in, they have sporadically come on for a few seconds twice in the past three weeks but in general dont work. All of the dashboard lights ans switches work, but all instruments lights are out. I have checked bulbs and they are fine and cant see any issues on the PCB. The fuses are all good.

 

Any Ideas?? Its getting too dark now and with all of the cameras about I dont like guessing the speed.

 

Neil

[SilverBeast]

Check the wiring behind the the light switch, particularly if it has a dimmer. I believe someone had a silmilar issue and it was because of this. As dimmer works just on instrument/dash lights check it has 12V to one side when lights are on. I would expect the output side to have a reduced voltage depending on dimmer position. You can probably just link the two wires together if dimmer itself is faulty, it should just leave them on the brightest setting.

 

edit: Actually if it has a dimmer the wiring this is a slightly different location, so I would check which ever is easier to get at.

Edited October 29, 2012 by SilverBeast

[neilthephot]

Great, thanks I will give it a look, dimmer is working and dims dash and button lights, just have no instrument lights to dim but now you mention it, there must be a seperate feed from the dimmer to the instrument panel. It seems that there is always something left to fix but at least its not too expensive and it ( touch wood) always gets me from A to B.

 

Neil

[Lloyd Evans]

I had the same issue, was a loose connection to the light switch (main light switch for car lights main, side, no lights) all the lights worked fine but the instruments lighting didn't change the switch job done