Instrument Cluster Lights Please Help

[reisom]

My truck's gear indicator lights will not light up. It's wierd, all the other readouts that come on that little screen seem to work. Odometer, fuel avg., etc...etc... all work, but when i go to put it in park or drive it goes blank. The screen just shut off. I've taken it to my local stealership and they've told me its not just a bulb problem (this is an LED readout). I have no clue what to do to even start self-diagnosing the problem. This truck is a work vehicle and i have employees that drive it often and i worry that some of them aren't competent enough to know which gear they are in just by counting how many clicks on the shift knob they move. I also pull a boat and am afraid someone will not know if they are in N or D when they pull me and the boat up out of the water on the ramp. Anyone else have this problem?

 

2003 GMC 2500HD Automatic

[bill190]

If you know electronics... Sometimes these things have loose solder connections. Might check for that.

 

Or perhaps some other loose connection.

 

If that fails to find the problem, then probably have to replace the smallest component part of this which you can order. Hopefully not the entire instrument cluster for a zillion dollars!

[ScottyBoy]

The same exact thing happens on our work truck. Its a 2003 reg cab long bed. 5.3 automatic, 2wd. But it is intermittent, not completely out like yours. Every once in a while it will go blank, then later it will come on again. The rest of the cluster works fine, just the gear indicator goes out every so often. I talked to the dealer and they said that it is a common issue on the 03-06 clusters. The whole instrument cluster needs to be replaced. They even had a tech service bulliten about this issue. But since ours insn't permanantly out yet, the big boss doesn't wanna have it fixed. (THEY ARE REALLY TIGHTWADS THERE). I posted about this problem quite a while back. Look here.