$550-$600 to change lights in Dash.

1997 LaSabre, on the Electronic Touch Climate Control unit, the thing where it has "Vent," 'Heater," "Blend," "Front," "AC".....it has lights so you can see the Controls at night.

It has 4 Buttons accross the top and, 4 accross the bottom. Only 4 of the 8 lights, light up. Just the lights on the 4 to the left (two on top and two on the bottom) work. I have to turn on the dome light at night if I want to see the 4 on the right.

I went into the dealer to get some lights, only to find they only sell it as a complete unit, $550 to $600 depending on wich one I have.

Has anyone ever opened up the box and looked inside? Is there a way to put in new lights?

I can't beleve you can only get this as a complete unit. $600 just to get lights! Thank you, Chris.

The lights are probably LEDs soldered to a circuit board. They aren't bulbs that you can just replace, they are supposed to last the life of the car. If they went out already, the unit was most likely flawed from the factory.

If they are in fact LEDs on a circuit board... you could solder in new ones... if you were skilled at soldering surface mount components to circuit boards.

Any sort of lighting that dims when you adjust the intsrument panel brightness is not using an LED. It isn't possible to vary the brightness of an LED, some of the lights throughout the interior will dim with the panel control and some will not. Most, however, do dim and so these are non-LED traditional light bulbs. I have had similar trouble on my 2000 LeSabre, these things are actually tiny little "grain of rice" bulbs that are very commonly used for such applications. They are solder mounted with the intention that they will never have to be replaced, but you can buy replacements at your local radio shack. If you get the a/c control unit out of the dash and open it up, there will probably be a circuit board behind the buttons and you will see these tiny little light bulbs soldered to it. All of your instrument panel bulbs have a greenish tint to them, this is because they install a little rubber cap over each clear bulb on the circuit board. When you go to find replacement bulbs at radio shack they will just be clear, so when you de-solder the old bulbs make sure you simply pull this rubber cap off the bulb first so you can re-install it on your new bulb. Definately pull the cap off before you try de-soldering or you may damage the rubber cap with the heat. Also, if all four bulbs went out at once I would be suspicious of a more serious defect in the unit. You can easily use a multi-meter to check the continuity of each bulb to see if the bulb is burned out or not. But there is some tricky solder work involved in replacing these things, something that would require some patience and dexterity. If you aren't confident with this type of work I wouldn't even attempt the repair because you could damage a lot in the process. An alternative would be to just go on ebay and buy a used unit, I see them pop up on there a lot for a heck of a lot less than 500 bucks.

Junkyard!

On my 1995 the only light that dims in response to the headlights being turned on is the radio display. Additionally, the radio buttons and the cluster illuminates. Obviously you can continuously vary the brightness of the cluster lights, thus they cannot be traditional LED bulbs. I'm about positive digital radio readouts use LEDs though, at least they are refered to as LEDs, and they do in fact dim.

The Climate Control button lights, however; do not dim in response to the headlights being turned on. They are illuminated with the same brightness no matter what, obviously so you can tell which button is selected in the daylight. Additionally, when the headlights are turned on, back lighting is added to temperature and fan speed selectors. However, as this is a 1997, I expect the temperature and fan speed readout is a digital display that, like the radio, dims in response to the headlights.

However, I believe the question is directed specifically at the indicator lights contained under the function selector buttons (i.e. Heat, A/c, Vent, Defrost...). This could be surface mount LEDs, LED bulbs, or any other PCB mounted bulb.

Repairing it at home will require taking it apart and knowing how to solder on a circuit board. At the very least, the bulbs will need to be replaced.

I agree 100% with pcmos, the fact one entire row of lights has stopped working, it is most likely a bigger problem than burnt out bulbs. The power has been cut to the row for some reason... Most likely because the PCB (circuit board) has been cracked.

Have the buttons ever been pressed/pounded/hit harder than they should of been?

Most likely a wiser solution to buy a used climate control console and just swap out the circuit boards. That's the easiest, the most cost effective... but not the cheapest. (Which is always my first concern. LOL)

When you select one of the four dark climate buttons, does the orange indicator light up to indicate your selection? The orange lamp that lights up when you press one of the buttons is a board mount LED I believe, but the greenish back light that lights up the words should be a traditional board mounted bulb. Both the LED and the incandescant bulbs are soldered directly to the circuit board. But if the orange indicator is also not lighting up when you press the button, you probably do have a more serious problem like a crack in the board itself. In terms of the junkyard, you may have better luck price-wise on ebay, I've seen these things up on ebay for around 20 bucks.

This showed up with my eBay searches today. Found it rather amusing, as this item is completely unrelated. I have no idea why it came up. Took it to be an omen, figured I'd better post it.

Buick Park Avenue LeSabre Heat Heater A/C Controls
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7933119277

"Any sort of lighting that dims when you adjust the intsrument panel brightness is not using an LED. It isn't possible to vary the brightness of an LED, some of the lights throughout the interior will dim with the panel control and some will not. Most, however, do dim and so these are non-LED traditional light bulbs."
??? Never heard that before.