I have a 93 Civic Ex and ever since I got the car 2 years ago, the dashboard lights never seem to work. Although last winter when I would start my car up in the morning they worked twice but only lasted for about 5 minutes. I kind of think that there is a short somewhere but not sure. If anyone knows anything about this please help! Thanks

 

I would check for a defective fuse, or a defective "Dash Light Brightness Controller", if it was a short the fuse would blow and they would not work at all until fuse is replaced, if it is a defective fuse they can be intermittent, same goes for a defective "DLBC"

The above assumes that you are talking about the instrument cluster illumination lights.

Is there an aftermarket HU in the car? 94

 

Yeah I recently had one installed(but not the first aftermarket one for this car) and the people at best buy told me that there were a bunch of wires back there that they didn't know what belonged to.

The previous owner of the car had a bunch of stuff installed into it including an alarm system, cell phone speaker, aftermarket HU, automatic door lock by remote and probably some other stuff but none of these things have ever worked for me.

I don't want to mess with the wires too much since I am not sure what they all belong to.