I can no longer control the brightness of my dash lights. I took the factory out and cleaned it and put it back in. That did not help. I bought a new one and put it in and it did the same thing.

My headlights turn on. I can turn on the interior lights by turning the **** all the way to the left. My dash lights do come on at full brightness but refuse to change with the **** being turned. It is very annoying to drive with the lights on at full. Any ideas are appreciated. Thanks.

 

"I took the factory out and cleaned it and put it back in. That did not help. I bought a new one and put it in and it did the same thing."

What did you take out, clean, and put back in, the headlight switch? If you bought a "new" one it's not entirely impossible that it's defective. Sometimes the used junkyard stuff is actually better than the cheap offshore crap they sell for "new". It's not hard to test the reostat with a DMM btw.

 

Not sure what you have in your dash, but when I replaced the incandescent dash bulbs with LEDs in my 96 they would not dim. If I turned the dimmer all the way down they would shut off but it was either on or off.

 

LED's don't dim. Diodes either conduct or not. (For you engineers; yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. This isn't the place to discuss PN Junctions etc.)

 

Yeah it depends on what you are referring to when you say you bought a 'new one", and thats if you are talking about the headlight switch.

 

I bought an entirely new headlight switch. It is a BWD Headlight Switch Part No S2036P

I took out the headlight switch and cleaned the disc with the contact and resistor plates with rubbing alcohol. I tested my old switch and the new one and they have the same readings in each place changing with how you turn it.

I am going to try getting a different switch today and then I might be off to the junkyard.

I still have the factory bulbs in btw.

 

Here's the '99 headlamp switch diagram and pinout.

 

Based on that schematic just measure resistance from pins 1 - 9 and look for a nice linear change as you turn the switch. If that's good repeat measuring Volts DC. Should point you at the problem.

 

Ended up not even needing a new switch. 25amp fuse was blown at the pd center. Oh well at least the factory one is clean now.