No Dash Lights? Don’t be an idiot like me.

My wife who is shorter than I (this is your hint), returned from a trip across town telling me that the dash lights did not display. I turn the car on and sure enough the dash lights do not display, actually it does show Ready and the seatbelt light shows up and the brake light and the green light showing that my lights are on...and very dimly the park reverse neutral drive light cluster shows up. But all of the rest is down. Even the green light behind the power button does not show up though curiously the amber light turns on when it’s first pressed.

So being the Brilliant one that I am, I whip out the manual and look at all of the different fuses that exist in this vehicle. Two different locations, and a boatload of fuses later, I have narrowed it down to a couple of likely fuses. I go to the local car parts store and buy this fancy fuse puller that also includes a tester. The fuse puller is too large for the teeny fuses in the left side interior box but the sales guy shows me that my main fuse box has a small fuse puller in it. I now think I’m almost done.

After pulling several different fuses out and testing them and finding that they all work I am totally stumped. And so is the sales guy.

I get in the car to drive away without any dash lights showing me how fast I am going, etc. when I noticed that even though my radio display is on the display underneath it showing my temperature and fan does not have any backlight.

I’m sure you guessed several paragraphs ago what the issue was but only at this point did I realize that someone had bumped the display brightness setting turning it all the way off. It is right next to the mirror adjustment four-way button. Perhaps an errant knee or someone searching for the mirror adjustment button...

Next time you have no display on the dash check your dimmer switch first! (Ugh, I’m such an idiot.)