scsteven

Hi all. I have been wracking my brain searching and searching and searching for a cure for my issue.
Last weekend, I installed a new Pioneer DIN HU. It's the FH-x700BT. Love it!
However, after install, driving my car at night, noticed the HVAC ***** aren't illuminated. Everything else works in the car.
This weekend, tore my dash apart and checked all the connections and everything is good. All fuses are good too- checked every one of them, including under the hood.
There is only one wire not connected and it's the "dimmer" wire. Called Crutchfield and he said not to worry about that one. No aftermarket stereos use it.
Any ideas?? I mean I can live without the 3 lights- however as a type A perfectionist, it's driving me nuts!!!

buickid

The dimmer wire only dims the head unit's lights, it doesn't control any of the car's lights. The guy was correct, not all HU use it. The lights for the HVAC **** are fed through the widest connector, the rightmost of the three (when looking at the dash). Try reseating the plug. Make sure the dimmer wire you mentioned earlier isn't shorting out to anything, cut the end flush and tape the end to another wire so it's not flapping around. Hope that helps!

scsteven

dimmer wire is completely sealed off and not touching anything but electrical tape. I'll quadruple check the widest harness. I guess the other thing to do is to make sure that that harness has power coming in to it. Ugg. I just want it to work!!! Thank you!!

buickid

I assume your speedometer lights up when you turn the lights on? You can check the terminals that the HVAC bulbs sit in too, see if they're getting power. Its possible the bulbs conveniently chose this time to burn out. Perhaps they were on their last leg, and removing the dash pieces finally broke the filaments. They're the little circles, about quarter inch in diameter on the center of the dash piece. Gently twist counterclockwise a quarter turn and they should fall out if you gently tap it on the back. Probe the copper contacts and see if you're getting ~12V
Cheers.

xBBQ

I have a not helpful reply:

Ironically, my A/C lights stopped working 6 months ago, and I have been suffering along with it. It just so happens, I also decided to recently do two things:
1) buy a FH-X700BT like you
2) figure out why my lights don't work and possibly replace/upgrade the bulbs.

The FH-X700BT is on order and I do not have it yet, but in anticipation of working on this i just decided 5 minutes ago to go and take of the A/C ***** and look behind there to see how hard taking off the bezel will be. I took the three ***** off, turned the headlights on, and as I suspected, no lights back there. I decided to blow some air back there to clean some dust off the bezel/panel.

As I was peering around through the round **** holes, it looked like there was light back there. Low and behold, the little lights had come on. WTF? I turned nmy head lamps off and they went out. Turned the head lights back on...... NOTHING.

What is going on here? I tapped the bezel, and blew more air back there, tried the headlights again ... and voila, the A/C lights came on agaon.


So ..... all this to say that your problem (and mine) might be as simple as corroded/poor connection at the bulb or somewhere along the woires for those bulbs. I will note that both mine go onff/off together, so I do not suspect a bulb specific issue.

Once my radio arrives and i in fact take the dash bezel off, I may hae a bteer idea of where the failure point is.....

buickid

I'll post here instead of your other thread to keep it all in one place, but you may want to just give a twist on the bulbs to make sure they're seated fully. A quarter turn is all it takes. Might try replacing them, its possible the wires in the bulb assembly are broken and intermittently making contact. They should be cheap. I took out the stock bulb and transplanted a 5mm LED into the bayonet connector along with a resistor. Little ugly looking, but its all hidden behind the dash, so no biggy.