Last night when I was driving home, I noticed that all of my “night lights” were off. The lights on the speedometer, gas gauge, gear shift, etc. did not seem to be working, but all of my system warning lights (Traction, Brake, etc) seemed to be fine. I tried to turn the car on and off a few times and also tried fiddling with the lights manually. Nothing seemed to be working. Anyone else had this problem?
Next, check to see if you have taillights, on some vehicles they are connected to the same fuse, thats how the car tells you that you have no taillights. If the taillights are not working, the next question is do you have a trailer hitch. Faulty trailer hitch wiring can blow the taillight fuse.
Follow Keith’s advice and check your tail lights as they may be on the same fuse. If the tail lights aren’t working, then check the fuse for that circuit. If the tail lights are working, then check for another fuse that may control the circuit for the dash and console lights. If no fuse has blown, the next suspect is the dimmer control for these lights.
This is probably silly, but check to make sure the dimmer knob is not turned down. Always check the easiest first.
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@knfenimore–Good point. Some car manufacturers play “hide the dimmer knob”. My institution rented a Nissan Sentra for me to take a 600 mile round trip to a conference. There were two of us in the car and both of us grumbled all the way back at night that the dash lights were too bright and that there was no way to dim them. I found the secret a year later when I bought a 2011 Toyota Sienna. One rotates the button that resets the trip odometer. Now if the previous driver of the Nissan Sentra had turned off the dash lights, we would never have figured out how to turn them on.
I think my 1947 Pontiac did things the correct way. The headlight switch was on the dashboard–pull it out and the headlights would go on. Twist the knob and the dashlights could be dimmed or brightened.
Good point KNF- Occam’s Razor.usually works.
My SO says she “might have” messed with the dash light dimer switch.