Dash Lights Suddenly Went Out
 

While driving home tonight with headlights on. My dashlights suddenly went out. The lights for gear shift, A/C, heat, clock, none of those lights work despite repeated attempts of turning on/off the headlight. My 05 Matrix has a light adjustment control next to the headlight toggle, but that did nothing as well.

What could be the problem? TIA!

Not sure if it would be the same for you, but mine was caused by my wiring harness shitting the bed. Did you smell anything weird before they stopped working?

I didn't smell anything. U mean the wiring harness for the stereo?

No it was my wiring harness for my lights. My dashlights don't work and neither do my taillights (it's all on the same harness for me, thanks Mazda lol)

Try flicking your hvac controls / dials violently.

All the lights on my 05 'rolla went out randomly one day, jiggling the HVAC controls a bunch of times fixed it ... YMMV

Hate to be that guy, but you did check the fuse right?

Where's the fuse? I don't know much about cars.

EDIT: Nevermind, figured it out with the manual. I'll check tomorrow.

I recently swapped all my interior dash and HVAC lights, and when one of the lights shorted out when I was tinkering around, the first thing to go was the fuse.

So, +1 for fuse.

Thanks for the input guys, so there's good news and bad news.

The good news is it's a fuse problem. The bad news is it keeps shorting out, and I don't know why.

Help?

I see you have an aftermarket radio. You should check the wiring behind the radio. One of those wire is for the stock deck light. Maybe it shorter it out as you won't need it for most aftermarket decks.

All the ends of unused wires were taped up with electrical tape. Can't think of how that could be the culprit.

Most likely the short is in the illumination circut. If you have a aftermarket head unit I would check the wire running to it (it's usually orange or green on the head unit.) look for bare wires.

All the bare wires were taped up upon installation. I'll double check when I have time.

So I took a good look at my stereo, and it turns out that it was the culprit. One of the illumination wire was exposed. Thanks for all the input guys. You saved me a trip to the shop that would've cost me $300. :)