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Hello all,

I'm not sure if this is the place to talk about problems with my Civic, but I thought I would give it a shot.

About a week ago when I got in my car and turned my headlights on, I noticed that the lights behind my gauges were off. I check the fuse and sure enough it was blown. I replaced it and all was fine. The next day I also noticed that my break lights and my horn was out. Fuse blown. Replaced and it was fine. Then a couple days later my gauges stopped working altogether. Fuse blown. Replaced and it blew again. I left it alone until I could get more fuses to see if I could troubleshoot it, but when I replaced it all was fine. About 20 minutes later, the lights to my gauges and my gauges stopped working. The lights went out when I put it in reverse (I have a manual) and then the gauges stopped working when I started to go.

My headlights work, brake lights work, horn works, stereo works, but the main problems (rear lights, gauges, and gauge lights) are still there. What was weird was that when all this happened when I hit my brakes my left turn signal would come on as a steady light. Now when I use that turn signal it is much faster than the other one.

Do you think that a wire could be touching the frame or another wire? Is there a good way to troubleshoot this? I'm not the best with cars, but I'm definitely willing to get my hands dirty. Any suggestions would be awesome!

Thanks so much!

 
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BTW I have a 2001 Civic EX

 
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My little bros sentra did the same thing after he got a new battery. It turned out that the a-holes at the ford dealership ripped out their ford alarm(because we weren't paying 400$ for it) and it left the electrical system in shambles. The tech who fixed it said that the car kept blowing fuses and at first he thought that the grounds were bad. Maybe its the same thing. Hope you find the solution to your problem.

 
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I'll be checking the wiring harness....not 100% what to look for though. Would I be seeing a frayed wire or anything like that? Why would my turn signal come on steady or at all when I hit the break? Wires touching? I was hoping that would point to something in particular.

 
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new or used?
did it once upon a time have an alarm?
when did you get the car? if it was recently just bring it back where you got it?

 
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I bought the car new in 2001. Never had an alarm. I haven't done any work on it, this just started happening all of the sudden.

 
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well if you are blowing fuses again and again, you have a short to ground somewhere in that circuit. Voltage is going straight to ground before any load and there is no resistance in that path which in turn blows the fuse.

Now exactly what fuses are still blowing? which everones are, you need to start tracing wiring in that circuit. somewhere a wire is picnhed or frayed shorting out. If none is found, the load (motor, actuator) may have an internal short.

one good way to figure out where the short is, is to hook up a volt meter or test light to the fuse terminal that is blowing and disconnect the load in that circuit and wiggle the wires. If the test light lights or the meter reads voltage, the short is close to that point.

 
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Here are what the fuses that are going out are labeled as:

horn, stop; small light; meter

horn,stop are my break lights and horn of course

Small Light goes to the two yellow lights on either side of my headlights, the dash lights, and the rear lights

Meter is to the gauges.

The horn,stop and small light are in the engine compartment and the Meter is under the steering column. Currently the Small Light and Meter are the ones that keep blowing. This initially started with the Small Light going out.

Thanks a ton for the advice. I'm going to take my car to a friends house and see if we can find a short. I'm praying that it will be somewhat of an easy fix (yeah I doubt it too). :P

Thanks a lot and if you have other suggestions I'm all ears

 
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ok this is reviving old thread..since i have sort of the same problem and dont wana start a new one . i installed a new hu and tried installing HIDs n now my center console lights and parking lights dont work..and the 15amp fuse for "small light" under the hood blows everytime i start the car and turn on the lights ..how do i check if the grounding is bad ..so much wires everywhere and so little space T.T