Today on my 98 Sc400 I turned the round **** down to decrease the brightness on the instrument panel & I heard it click like usual, then I turned it back up to full strength & again heard the **** click to highest part but now now instrument cluster backlight is not going to brightest anymore, anyone know why? I usually always keep it on the brightest cause I like to see the cluster that way especially during the day.

So why can't I get it to the brightest setting anymore? Suggestions? Thanks

 

you should pm olt, he knows about that stuff!

 

Well, turns out it's ok now. Took my car out late tonight for a couple hours and the brightness control is working fine, I can use it at full brightness or dim it really low. Weird cause during the day today I could only get the dim to work, anyhoo, thanks for listening. I love driving my SC at night with the electro-luminicent backlit dash, its awesome.

 

I had to change my battery today because my car couldn't start and I figure the battery was dead.
I got it from costco 640 CCA.
The car starts fine after I installed the new battery and everything else seems working okay - EXCEPT my instrument cluster panel. It no longer lights up and I get complete darkness. Seat belt, door lights, other icons all come on fine. If I squint real hard, I can see that the #'s are there too, but it is the BACK LIGHT and needles that is OUT. Could I have fried something when installing the new battery ? Maybe there's a reset or breaker I can do? Please help. OLT? Anyone?

 

Very odd. check all the kick panel fuses.

 

maybe your LEDs are going bad like mine. Mine are flickering all over the place like an 80's rock show.

 

I can help!

There was a thread over on LOC where the dash went completely out and the guy fixed it somehow, lemme go look for you.

 

Thanks OLT.

It turned out while I was installing the battery, I must have shorted something. I tried the fuse box in the kick panel but everything was fine there. Then I looked at the fuse box under the hood and replaced the DOME fuse with a spare fuse that Lexus (thanks toyota) includes and it now works fine. It's weird how the DOME is the one to go and that fixed everything (rather than the Panel or Gauge fuse in the kick panel)... just something to think about in case someone in the future has a similar issue and find this thread...

 

To the original poster's question... Remember the dimmer acts differently when you have your headlights on as opposed to off. You reported different results at night and during the day.