dome light dilemma

Got a puzzling problem with the dome light on my daughter's '96 Civic LX. The light won't come on when a door is opened. The light will only come on when the switch is moved to the on position. The door-activated center position does not work. All the door switches checked out and the dome light door-activated position appears to check out, although I'm just a shadetree mechanic with a multimeter.
Any suggestions??
Thanks,
Rainman

That sure sounds like a door switch problem - Are you sure the door switches aren't bad - they should ground out when the door is open. Check all the fuses. When I worked for Honda I remember one case where the actual dome light switch went bad.
http://www.binghamtonlife.com/manual/2gsm/images/91-23-125.jpg

Does it have an aftermarket cd player installed? If anything is installed besides the factory honda tape player, this will cause the domelight to not work on door open. The honda head unit has a chip in it that controls this...some people put the stock unit back in and hard wire the cd player, which is a big pain. If you pull out the cd player, you'll notice a bright neon green plug that is un-used. Pull this plug out as far as you can to access the wires...i may be wrong, but there's 2 wires you need to splice together...a green with red stripe, and green with black stripe, you splice the 2 together and it should work. If you dont see these 2 wires, post something and i'll double check mine. It's been a few weeks since i fixed mine and i dont remember exactly the wire colors...but i think im right. Hope this helps...

Thanks Civic98Mi. I replaced the factory radio with a Kenwood CD head unit. I'll pull the head unit out and look for the plug. I'll update as soon as I have a chance to splice the wires.

These forums are great for us do-it-yourselfers.

weird....i was going to start a thread about a similar problem i am having. the switch seems to work fine, as the dome light will turn on manually, but wont turn on when my door is open either. this is so annoying. i was wondering if it uses the same switch that sets off the chime that sounds when the door is open with the keys still in the ignition. because the chime sounds like normal, but the light just doesnt turn on. again, it works, as i can turn it on manually. any insight is appreciated, or if you gain any ground rainman, plz let me know!

I suggest trying my above post on splicing the 2 wires together...Let me know how it works out. If you pull the green plug out and you dont see these green/red and green/black wires, let me know and i'll pull my head unit out to double check. It's been a few weeks since i've done it so i'm guessing the wire colors off the top of my head. I'm almost 99% sure those are the right wires. As for the door chime, i think that's a different switch than the dome light, because there's only 2 wires going to the dome light, one is a power, the other branches off to your door popper thingies (i dunno what the hell they're called, the little rubber things that tell if your door is open or not). The domelight itself has its own ground, i've taken it apart before a few months ago. Anyways, good luck to the both of you, and post something to let me know if it works.

civic98mi,
i inquired about this at the dealership while my civic was being serviced and the service advisor confirmed the dome light being wired somehow into the stock radio. he said the malfunction is most likely due to my aftermarket alpine head unit. the funny thing is, my dome light worked perfectly fine for a while, even after the installation of my head unit, which was about 2 years ago! it just now is crappin out. so i dunno if this wire splicing fix will work for me. either way its worth a shot, because i was told theres about a $100 diagnostic charge just for honda to snoop around about my dome light. i'll let you know the results.
thanks again for posting the info.



I suggest trying my above post on splicing the 2 wires together...Let me know how it works out. If you pull the green plug out and you dont see these green/red and green/black wires, let me know and i'll pull my head unit out to double check. It's been a few weeks since i've done it so i'm guessing the wire colors off the top of my head. I'm almost 99% sure those are the right wires. As for the door chime, i think that's a different switch than the dome light, because there's only 2 wires going to the dome light, one is a power, the other branches off to your door popper thingies (i dunno what the hell they're called, the little rubber things that tell if your door is open or not). The domelight itself has its own ground, i've taken it apart before a few months ago. Anyways, good luck to the both of you, and post something to let me know if it works.

i did a search on the net and found this site: http://www.streetdreams.com/tech/honda/civic9698.html. when i removed the deck i had to snoop a little..i didnt know the wires were the numerous small ones attached to a green plastic harness plug. when i re-read the colors of the wires to search for, i noticed that they were already spliced with a small blue device. i tweaked it a little, and my dome light started functioning again. the folks at the local stereo shop must have known of this problem on our civics. below is a link to a pic i took, sorry about its blurriness. hope this helps anyone still having problems with this issue!

http://files.automotiveforums.com/gallery/uploads/30478/deck001.jpg

Called Crutchfield Technical Support to verify which wires to splice. It is indeed the Green wire with Red stripe and the Green wire with Black stripe. I asked the tech why those instructions weren't provided in the original package. His excuse was that it didn't happen on every one, but that each tech had a note about it.
Anyway, I haven't had a chance to pull the head unit back out, but when the job is completed, I'll update.
Thanks,
Rainman

:biggrin: Finally got the time to do a couple of the jobs on my daughter's '96 Civic LX. Pulled the Kenwood head unit out and found the green connector that plugs into the factory head unit. Located the pale green/red stripe wire and pale gree/black stripe wires, cut and spliced. Voila! The dome light works properly again. By the way, there are other green wires in that cluster, so be sure and find the pale green ones. Also pulled the SRS and steering wheel to install new turn signal cancellation cam. Not too difficult, but I was extra careful with the airbag and made sure both cables were off the battery for five minutes before starting job.

Well thats awesome. I'm glad it worked for both of you. That solution is 10 times easier than the other solution i've heard people tell me...which was plug the stock honda deck back in, let it hang behind the dash, and hard-wire the cd deck direct. That would be a huge pain. MUCH easier to splice 2 little wires. I'm not sure if either of your model civics had the factory keyless entry or not, but to my knowlege that wouldnt work either if you have the aftermarket player. I think the 2 green wire splice fixes that too, but i'm not sure since my car has an aftermarket alarm.