Recently replaced a radio in my friends 99 civic lx. She told me that she now does no have a headlight reminder chime or dash lights. Do they share a fuse, or a common circuit or something? I don't have a chance to look at the car till Monday and haven't owned a Honda in years. I'm a little rusty with Honda knowledge. Thanks in advance.

 

Bump

 

Check the fuses. You didn't wire anything into the dimmer switch did you?

 

Don't remember off the top of my head. I do remember there was two orange wires I didn't end up using coming off the harness... I Insulated it. Why do you ask?

 

7.5A dash fuse 30 is blown.

 

$1 says it blows again as soon as you replace it

 

Care to elaborate?

 

I'm in for some info as well I'm having the exact same problem with my civic. Damn fuse 30 keeps blowing.

 

Bump for more info.

 

There is no more help. Start checking every single wire. Did you read post #5?

 

Yes, I read post 5. The fuse is probably blown. The question is why and what does that have to do with the dimmer switch.

 

WTF do you mean "probably" blown? It either is or it is not. Which leads me to believe you did not check it. If you're wiring up an aftermarket radio #1 you should NOT have to splice any wires into anything for power because you should be using an aftermarket harness and #2 there is an empty slot in the fusebox where you should be connecting to if you didn't use a proper harness. AT the very least you can splice into the cigarette lighter/power connector. The power to the dimmer switch should never be used to power anything but what it is supposed to be powering-the dash lighting.

 

fuse is for sure blown, that chime/dash lights are on the same fuse. If it blows again, check the harness running from your CD player, my roommate JUST fixed this same issue last night, turns out the guy who put the aftermarket CD player in it had no clue what he was doing and had a bare wire grounding out somewhere behind the CD player. After he taped everything off and replaced the fuse all was good.

 

So the dimmer switch runs to the stereo deck? I may have accidentally spliced it to the power wire for the stereo. So your saying run the power wire for the stereo off of the cigarette 12V wire?

 

Get a proper harness to install aftermarket decks. Don't hack wires. That's what I'm saying. That's all I've ever said. 15+ years installing decks with these and I have never had an issue. Do NOT run anything off of the dimmer switch. Ever.

 

If you would have read my post I stated I had not looked a the car yet. I didn't state anywhere that I didn't use an aftermarket harness (which I did) I merely connected the appropriate colored wires together as I would any other install. You could have just answered I shouldn't have hooked up the dimmer wire to the aftermarket harness. I didn't splice into anything for power, again I don't know where exactly in my post you go that info. Read before you start going off on a tangent.

 

You aren't even able to look at the car but you're asking for troubleshooting advice. You're guessing at conditions and wasting everyone's time while you're doing it.

I read your thread. And the obvious problem is that while YOU installed the deck you caused the short that blew out the fuse controlling the chime and dash lights. When you get back to the car pull everything and trace your work and you'll find the short. More than likely you'll find shoddy splicing at one of the wires. Then while you're at it undo any connections you made to the dimmer switch.

Then apologize to your friend for the inconvenience.

 

Something shorted when I installed the deck. That was the point of the thread in the first place. The simple answer would have been that I shouldnt have hooked anything up to the dimmer wire. Its people like you that make me glad I don't frequent these forums anymore. Thank you and have a good day.

 

Make up your mind. You didn't use the dimmer wires or did you? NO WHERE IN THIS THREAD did you say you hooked up anything to the dimmer switch now you are. At the very least you don't remember so asking for troubleshooting advice is useless until you get back to the car. If you taped off the orange wires from the harness, one of THOSE being a wire for the dimmer, then what did you hook up to the dimmer switch if you didn't use them?

 

OP - you are reluctant to take advice. People are trying to steer you in the right direction. Do the recommended tests and post the results.

 

So what is supposed to be done with the dimmer switch wire? Just tape it off? And I do have a wire harness for the stereo, it came already in the car.

 

Why was the wire from the dimmer switch touched in the first place? What color wire from the switch are you talking about? There should be 3...

 

ok, i had this happen to me too. if you cut the factory radio harness to do the radio install then heres what you do...

pull the radio back out. find the ground wire coming from the back of the new radio(black). now find the ground wire coming from the car(black). securely attach those 2 wires together.

most radios come with a little clip that looks like you can hook to some metal for a good ground. BUT you MUST instead hook the ground wire from the new radio to the ground wire that went to the factory radio.

when this happened to me my rear running lights were out too. very dangerous

also, i would add grumblemarc to your ignore list. a solid suggestion for any h.t. user

 

Tape it off.

 

It's not really grumblemarc's fault, I know where he's coming from, kids get on here with little to no experience with cars and expect people to tell them exactly how to do everything. It just gets frustrating when people cannot post the proper information for the problem. I've noticed that lately, and I only have about 400 posts.. while grumble has over 9k.. can't imagine how many times he's had to deal with that stuff. He really does know his s**t, he's helped me countless times. As long as you do some research and post the proper info we can actually help and not have problems.