Vauxhall Dashboard Lights

Rccall

Hi all - any ideas - 2003 Vauxhall Vectra 2.2 Elegance.

Dashboard (clocks and background) and heating control lights just stopped working with no warning whatsoever.

Have googled and one of the fixes was a reset on the mileometer whilst turning on ignition. This didnt work. Last night I unlocked the car and opened the rear door to put something on the back seat - lo and behold the b....y things came on (when working properly always came on when car was unlocked for a short time). So obviously whatever supplies the light (I am told its optic fibre) does work.

Does anyone have any ideas about what the blazes is going on or am I gonna have to get this to an auto electrician. I believe there is some sort of control unit that runs all this and that it does apparently go wrong after a period of time.

Would be delighted to hear about any solutions.

Rccall

facade

On my 2003 corsa there was a dimmer control placed by the lightswitch so that every time you turned it on your finger moved it a little bit without realising, until eventually the dash lights were dimmed fully off.

Worth a check.

zax47

Common fault on Vauxhalls of that age. The PCB behind the instruments cracks near the big connector in the middle. Even going over small bumps, or even changes in temperature can make it fail. Rest your hands on top of instrument cluster and push firmly in middle of front of instruments with your thumbs and it'll come back. Not uncommon for Corsas, Vectras and Astras from around 2000-2006 to have had 2 or 3 replacement instrument clusters.

Rccall

Hi - sorry for only just replying now. No internet last night.

yeah tried the dimmer switch but not that.

Will have a go at the cluster this evening when I get home. Definitely not tried that yet.

Many thanks - will keep you updated.

Strider590

Your car battery is about to fail.

This is the 3-4 day warning sign, my Vectra always does it a few days before the battery no longer starts the car.

Reason = As a battery gets older it's capacity diminishes and as this happens the voltage drop at starting goes from 10v to around 8v, this low voltage causes the dash to turn off.

Because the alarm system and the bulb out system (which is always checking the bulbs), Vectra gets through batteries in about 3 years.

If your battery is older than 3 years, then the wise thing to do is to now mail order a new one before the old one fails and save yourself £40-£60.

The real catch is the radio, if you don't have the code it's going to cost you £40 from Vauxhall regardless of where you get the battery.

Feral_Moon

Fire hazard!

Strider590

Feral_Moon wrote: »

Fire hazard!

Far less of these built, far more have caught fire and all without being caused by bodged repairs to the heater system.

Then on top of that you have the Mecedes C-Class, where 250'000 cars were recalled last year because of a fire risk. Not in the UK though, why? because Mercedes do secret recalls, because most owners are on finance deals, they repair major flaws in their cars when the vehicles come in for service.

Again though, these are manufacturing faults, not caused by people bodging the cars systems to save a few pennies.

Rccall

Strider590 wrote: »

Your car battery is about to fail.

This is the 3-4 day warning sign, my Vectra always does it a few days before the battery no longer starts the car.

Reason = As a battery gets older it's capacity diminishes and as this happens the voltage drop at starting goes from 10v to around 8v, this low voltage causes the dash to turn off.

Because the alarm system and the bulb out system (which is always checking the bulbs), Vectra gets through batteries in about 3 years.

If your battery is older than 3 years, then the wise thing to do is to now mail order a new one before the old one fails and save yourself £40-£60.

The real catch is the radio, if you don't have the code it's going to cost you £40 from Vauxhall regardless of where you get the battery.

When I said it just went I should have said 'simply'. It actually failed a couple of months ago and I was waiting for a friend who is a mobile mechanic to take a look but it was sadly beyond him.

Battery is only a few months old.

Rccall