Cluster gauges not working, remove fuse and they work ?

150

Asked by Shawn Jan 19, 2015 at 05:52 PM about the 2002 Pontiac Grand Am GT

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

I installed an after market radio and a
few weeks after my dash lights all
went out. I found out and replaced the
fuse and everything was OK. A few
days later my cluster gauges stopped
working and I checked my fuses and I
removed one and suddenly the
gauges began to work but it would not
allow me to start the car. I put the
fuse back in and the gauges went
back to not working. Can someone
please help me ?

19 Answers

26,205

Double check which fuse you removed. Typically, these two systems are not connected.

5 people found this helpful.
425

i would use the manual for your car if you have one. it will show where all of the fuses are in your car. you have 3 fuse boxes. one on the drivers side. one n the passenger side and one under the hood. go thru all of the fuses and look and see if they are burnt. of the ones you cant physically see to check get a volt meter and check to see if they have any voltage.

4 people found this helpful.
425

also these cars have fusible links and sometimes one shorts out . in that case you need a mechanic to look at it. i repair cars but thgt s- -- i wont mess with. i just cut the link and hook the wires together and put electrical tape on it. lol

3 people found this helpful.
310

hi I have a 2000 pontaic grandam when turn ignition to on position cluster gauges work fine..gas etc but when u start it up and it does run the cluster gagues stop working while running ..it does have a new ignition switch help

19 people found this helpful.
60

My dash lights just went out. What fuse is the instrument panel fuse. In a 2001 Pontiac gram am. 4 cylinder

6 people found this helpful.
425

look in your manual for the fuse for the instrument panel and start checking those. you have three fuse boxes. one on the outside of the drivers side by the door, one on the passenger side by the door and one under the hood close to the front of the car by the windshield. it has a big black knob attached to the cover.

2 people found this helpful.
425

in response to the 2000 grand am problem that sounds like either you have wires shorting out , a faulty fuse or a bad electrical system. i would start by checking all of your fuses in all three fuse boxes, then check the connection on your battery, clean if necessary and have your alternator checked to make sure its good. after that i would check to see if you have any wiring loose , corroded or rubbing up against each other untaped or wearing out. hope that helps.

3 people found this helpful.
425

if anyone has anymore questions that are pontiac related let me know. i am glad to help.

5 people found this helpful.

2006 Pont grand prix. Recently hooked up after market tv and all gauges stop working and no lights?

425

if you mean an after market radio like i have seen other comments in this area, this is my opinion. all pontiac grand ams, gt's etc are pretty touchy when it comes to replacing parts on them. i know some people think its cool to have a pricey radio in your car but most of the time they are not compatible with the wiring in the car or the computer wont recognize it as being original equipment and then things start going goofy with other components of the car. Your best bet is to find a local salvage yard with the same model car (year, specs etc) and pull the original radio from that car and replace yours with the original that came out of it. Make sure you get the exact wiring harness etc that comes with the radio and check any other wiring in the surrounding areas before you complete the installation to make sure none are frayed, corroded etc. if you see any problems use black electrical tape and tape the single wires once each by each one then tape once again altogether as a bundle until you can replace them. Make sure you have no bare wires anywhere touching anything. That in itself will cause other gauges to malfunction. Also go into all of your fuse boxes (of which you have 3) and check the fuses the run the gauges you are having problems with. You will find the location for each fuse listed in your owners manual. You have 3 fuse boxes. 1 by the drivers door on the outside when you open the door, 1 on the passenger side by the door and 1 under the hood by the firewall closest to the windshield. It has a big black knob on it to take it off. Hope this helps.

2 people found this helpful.
30

I have a 2000 and apparently the dashboard light wont work or the radio but the fuses in the car are just fine

3 people found this helpful.
20

Yeah here is a Pontiac question. Why are these cars such GARBAGE??

2 people found this helpful.

I got a question pontiac guy. I have a 01 grand am se with a 2.4 dual cam that has similar issues to all these. The speedometer fluctuates up and down rapidly but generally stays around the speed the car will go by 10 mph it only shifts to 2nd maybe 3rd gear and only accelerates slowly with the rpms jumping as well and it takes it's time between gears while revving high. After the last gear it tries to go into the next gear revs real high for a second then drops back down in the gear it was just in. It wont go over 40. The temp gauge doesnt seem to be working and the fuel gauge doesnt work or work properly. The only obd code that came up was related to the fuel gauge.

20

Cluster and scanner port not working. Fuse under hood and in dash for cluster are good. Is there a relay not listed in the manual? Where do I start?

2 people found this helpful.
20

96. Grand am GT 2.4. Electrical issue I’m assuming. After sitting for the better part of 2 years, only started to move it once in that time frame....... FINALLY found the proper transmission and so, go out and the battery is completely dead. So I use a booster and start to crank it over.. it was obviously a super dead battery.. anyhow I try about three more times, keep in mind I can tell it has no cranking amps if very little. So I try to charge battery on my little guy charger. No luck. Reads bad battery. So instead took it next door to my step dads shop. Hooked up battery up to a much bigger charger. Next day with the battery now reading about 13.5v put it in and cranked and cranked, probably tried this for a good 10-20 seconds. No fire! So I grab some starter fluid spray intake hose and the car fires right up... ran for a minute or so and died again. One more spray and she roared to life and started running like a champ! I let it idle for for about, oh 25 min or so and turned it off. The next day we pushed it back in the yard (no reverse) and I pull it out to the driveway facing the right direction. Turn it off. Next day my old man calls and said to go ahead and limp it to his driveway just to stage it until one of the bays were ready. So he meets me out there. Ask my to pop the hood. Of coarse at this time the coolant is just a rumbling in the reservoir. Sounded just awful. So I pull the cap off and same noise only now it really sounded like it was boiling yet coolant was cool to the touch. So by this time the car has been running strong at idle for about 15-20 minutes I jump in and try turning heater high heat high fan and the noise started to lessen. Hoping the thermostat was just stuck however the water pump gasket is leaking a bit now. So after all this the car has now been running for half hour. My dad and I were looking over the motor then the car dies. My dad thought it was out of fuel. Told him I had just put a fresh gallon in so knew in my heart that wasn’t the problem... pushed it into the the shop put three gal of fresh fuel. No fire. Now let’s keep in mind we are old school mechanics from international Harvester . So we check all fuses. All good. Google a fuse/relay diagram and the fuel pump relay when we jump a wire across kicks on the A/c clutch so we try the other three. One kicks over the fan next one kicks over the blower the last one doesn’t kick on anything.. so we assume it’s got to be the frighten fuel pump. I go buy one for a bit over 200 bucks. Drop the tank which isn’t much fun... take the old pump out and bench test it. And it’s working fine or so it seems. To be sure we weren’t missing anything we hooked it up to the harness just to be double sure that it wasn’t a bad connection or some other simple thing. So after this we didn’t know what else to go do so we put the old pump back in the tank put it back in the car strapped most of the way in and went to turn the key and the pump wouldn’t work. So out with the tank again and put in the new pump. Strap it all up againGo to click the key over and the fuel pump start working car fires. Problem solved, so over the next few nights the transmission get put in and everything back together. The new/ used transmission will only shift into 2&4 no reverse. So after all this turmoil figured out one of the shift cables was broken. Ordered a set of those another 120 so now it’s Finally running and driving great.... EXCEPT now my gauges aren’t working. All sensors seem to work ok. But no speedo or tach, temp and fuel all buried to 0. So now before I send speedo off for a 350 rebuild. I’m hopping after reading different threads..... I read that there is a recall for the ignition switch where if it’s cranked for to long without starting it’s sends over voltage which can cook the ignition switch. Now the question is is this most likely the problem.

2 people found this helpful.

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