two weeks after my warranty expired i ran into an electrical problem with my 6th gen accord. The instrument lights, tail light constants and front turn signal constants all went out. However, they all seem to work when i signal or brake. I replaced all the fuses but that did not remedy the problem. And honda is asking for $80 an hour and they said that electrical problems usually take a very long time to fix. Can anyone give me any suggestions as to what might be wrong with my car?

 

i alway get the helms and start small
go bulbs, fuses, relays, wiring.. ect. might have to mess with it. did you install an alarm or anything recently

 

Did you install an alarm or anything not so recently?

 

i recently installed a set of taillights, but i dont see how that would change anything...my bulbs are okay , i replaced my fuses but i havent taken a look at my relays

 

Its not a relay issue...

It could be a wattage rating of tailight bulbs you installed.. thats a slim chance...

It has the characteristics of a bad ground somewhere in the system.. it works when you use the signals/brakes cuz the power/negative signal is being fed into the system via the used component...

blown or missing fuses will also do this.. even though the fuse may not share the same circiut... for example, you could have a blown/missing radio fuse and it may have affect on the windshield wiper circuit... This is a term i like to call "backfeeding", the circuits interconnect via control units and will "suck" any juice they can to supply the load.. uhm...that didn't sound right?..ok...get your minds outta the gutter!

 

I would start looking there.

 

I had a similar prob. with my electrical system about a year back. I used a 98 center console cover in my 2000 coupe. everything matched up; harnesses, bolts, and fit. when i tried my hazards though, i heard two pops. i thought it would be a blown fuse or relay. nope. took the car to honda and they said 85 an hour even under warranty /b/ of aftermarket electrical parts i added even though they weren't on the same currency path as where the prob. started. bullshit to that, took car to another honda dealer and they replaced the entire (forget now what it's called) blue box in the drivers side fuse area (side of dashboard). the job would have cost nearly 500 beans.

this is a possibility. like your problem, my blinkers worked but my hazards did not and my interior dash lights were out too.