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so the other day I went to replace a 194bulb for my plate lights and the bulb shorted out in the socket causing a power loss to the plate lights and my dash, radio,and climate controls back lights. the needles work along with the LCD displays but no button back lights or cluster back lights. what could be doing this?

interior lighting fuse. check under the back seat for which fuse slot that is. if its none of those there is a fusebox under the hood also.

I have this exact same problem and cannot figure it out. It is so frustrating at night, I haven't had illumination for almost two years. My plate lights do not work either, so the interior lighting must be on the same circuit or something. I checked all my fuses and none of them relate to the problem, none are broken. There must be a short somewhere along in the wiring.

Extremely frustrating, hopefully someone can chime in.

Ahhh, what the hell. Bump?? Seems like there might be a relation with the license plate lights and the interior red back lights. Any ideas from the gurus? I don't even know where to start with for looking for a short, if there is one.

Have you checked the wiring to the visors?

I have not, but the lights do work in the visors.

To help visualize the problem. Hopefully OP will return... and confirm if this is the same thing he is experiencing?

Try checking the park lamp relay and DIMR fuse in the rear fuse block.

I'll check those out on a day when the windchill isn't -6! Brrrrrrrrrrr.

However, I should note that the parking lamps still work, as does the dimmer switch. It will still dim what's left of the lighting, including the various screens, the window switches, and the gear indicator. As you can see, the red illumination behind the gear numbers still works.

I'm guessing it is a short, I just hate the thought of tearing it apart to find it.

Looking up both of these in SI (Instrument panel backlighting inoperative and license plate light inoperative), I come across one circuit in both that gets tested.

That is the "Instrument Panel lamp fuse supply voltage 1 circuit".

Both say to test for an open or high resistance.

In the license plate lights, it is the yellow wire, circuit 32 Pin A
In the I/P, it says to test at the DIM for the same. Here again, yellow wire, circuit 32, pin H

Oh man Lane.... Thank you so much!

Found this picture from searching, so it looks like going in from under the hush panel by the blower will be the easiest way to get access?

No problem. My thoughts on this. And again, It's just surmising as I'm not actually in there circuit testing *IF* this is impacting both, I would check circuit 32 (the yellow wire), PIN H as it FEEDs into the DIM for that open/high resistance and trace it forward to whatever fusebox/electrical center it runs to. If it were after, I would think your license plate lights would work, but not the I/P lights.

A little late, but thanks for your advice Lane.

Any one have any suggestions for accessing the DIM?

I seem to recall removing the glove compartment (the inside too), as the steps to get to the DIM. But I may be confusing cars.

Did you find something in terms of problems?

That's what I was thinking, it looks like the glove box will come out if I remove the 3 visible 7mm bolts that are there.

I haven't really had the time to look into it, but I'm also diagnosing my in-operational driver side heated seat, so after Christmas I'm gonna have a electrical fault searching day... Merry Christmas to me.

nos4blood70 wrote:That's what I was thinking, it looks like the glove box will come out if I remove the 3 visible 7mm bolts that are there.

I haven't really had the time to look into it, but I'm also diagnosing my in-operational driver side heated seat, so after Christmas I'm gonna have a electrical fault searching day... Merry Christmas to me.

My drivers side seat just quit this morning. Clicks on for a second and then turns back off. Frustrating because the passenger side works fine but my legs aren't long enough to reach from over there. haha I'm not sure if it is the relay/ control under the seat or if it is an element that went out. I found a thread with some good info on that with a search though.

You most likely have a broken wire in the seat bottom, I checked there in my seat and found nothing wrong. Gonna have to check in the seat back.