7th Gen Civic dash backlight trouble

[civicnewbie]

Hi everyone,

Please let me know if I've posted in the wrong area - I'm hoping someone can offer some electrical advice.

I've just bought an '02 Civic VI, and found that the climate control backlights are out. The intake/AC/defrost button backlights to the right of the climate control work fine, as do the on/off button lights, but the P/R/N/D labels along the gear stick also don't illuminate.

After opening up and inspecting the climate control, the bulbs appear to be fine. I took a multimeter to the power lead on the back of the climate control dials (power for the bulbs), and found no voltage (both when the parking lights are on and off). I've checked all of the fuses in both boxes (inside and out), and none are blown.

The only modification the previous owner made was installation of a VDO speed alert, which joins a loom behind the cluster, and doesn't appear to be affecting any of the other wiring. The dimmer is fixed to the dash cluster, and works fine to dim the cluster lights.

Can anyone help figure out why there is no power to my climate control and gear stick backlights? Thanks!

[Grayfox]

Check the internal fusebox.

The fact that all of those lights are out makes it highly unlikely it is a blown bulb.
The buttons lights turn on when the circuit is complete and have nothing to do with the dashlights circuit.

[civicnewbie]

Thanks for the quick response - I checked all of the fuses in the internal and external fuse boxes, and they all appear to be fine. I've also since noticed that one of the front parking lights (right) and one of the rear number plate lights (either) only work intermittently, and on occasion I've found two of the three brake lights to not work (different light each time). Do you think that this could be related, or is it more likely that there are just a few bad bulbs?

[curtis265]

I don't think they're bad bulbs, i think you've got loose wiring somewhwere, probably notconnnected to the harness properly or cables broken internally...

Best of luck...

[Grayfox]

They might be broken if people used those scotch locks on one of the sidelight internal wires.
With out a wiring diagram you wont know which connector or wire it really is.

[civicnewbie]

Hi guys, thanks for the responses. After a little more testing, and unplugging/plugging any wiring harness I could reach, I found the backlight bulb power wiring carrying voltage, and I'm not sure if I had poor contacts when I first measured, or there was a change. Anyway, even though the bulbs looked fine, it was hard to tell, so I just replaced them all and found it to be working. I'm not sure if another underlying electrical problem caused all of the bulbs to blow, but I'll keep an eye on it for now.