Pricing advice-01 LX Wiring

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Oct 4, 2013

caliqueen91

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Pricing advice-01 LX Wiring

Quote:

Originally Posted by caliqueen91

Hello all,

I have been having several issues with my 2001 Honda Civic LX. When I first bought the car, the interior dome lights, both the front and middle one went out. I changed the fuse but it kept blowing so I just left it alone and dealt with having no lights. About 6 months later, my gauges started going haywire going down to 0 and then shooting up to the highest numbers while I was driving. I would turn the car off and back on and the problem would cease for a few days. After awhile the gauges would just stay at 0 and would not work unless I hit the plastic cover over the gauges until they came back on. The problem became more and more frequent. Now, the beeping noise that used to occur when I would leave my keys in the ignition or headlights on doesn't happen anymore. Anyone have any ideas? Any help would be super appreciated. Does it sound like these problems are connected are would they all be separate issues?

I ended up taking my car to a mechanic and he found that the gauge cluster was faulty and I would need to replace. He thinks that the cause for the interior lights not working and the fuse blowing is old wires under the dash. He wants to charge $500 to take apart the dash and replace some wires. Do you think this is overpriced? Do you think this is worth it to do?

Oct 4, 2013

ezone

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Re: Pricing advice-01 LX Wiring

Quote:

He thinks that the cause for the interior lights not working and the fuse blowing is old wires under the dash. He wants to charge $500 to take apart the dash and replace some wires. Do you think this is overpriced? Do you think this is worth it to do?

Sounds like an expensive guess to me....but I can't see what's going on there either.

*Serious face here*
What happens if (when) his guess doesn't fix the problem? What happens next? How expensive will the next guess be?

I can't tell you that it does not need a harness, I just don't think it is very likely to be the real problem.

If it IS the real problem, I bet I can do an awful lot of fixing/building/fabricating for that sum of money.

The factory guideline is something like, we are to 'Only replace wiring harnesses for SRS related issues. For all other problems, the harness is repaired'--- unless the cost of repair is higher than the cost of replacement.

But then, I'm not the one diagnosing the problem. Do you trust the guy? Is he any good with electricity? Many in this trade are not.

Be aware that electricity is like the "final frontier" of auto repair. A good 75% of mechanics out there just aren't any good with it at all, as in not even able to accurately figure out why a simple light bulb won't light up. Electronics makes it 10 times worse.

Relevant: https://forums.craigslist.org/?act=Q&ID=110994193

EDIT: So far I have not seen anything like typical "old wires" on 7th gens. Have seen plenty on 6th gens and prior, but not yet on 7th. I suppose it's possible.