Questions and Answers

Beretta Dash Lights

Q. Hi, Filled out this form and sent along a long description below. Appreciate any help you may have.

1996 Chevy Beretta Z26
3100 V6
4 spd Auto
Mileage - 32,XXX
Fuel Injection
ABS brakes - yes
P/S - A/C - Cruise control

Here's the MAIN Problem:
Half the dash gages are not glowing as bright as the other half.

From the 50 mph mark over to the left side, dimly lit. 60 mph over to the right is fine. The brightness level got worse the longer I drove, about 2 hours last night. I started the car when I got home, still not as bright on the left side, but not as dark as when I was previously driving.

When I first got the car (Nov 99) it was reversed. It was not the bulbs (they were all operational or so the dealer said) it's was a wire that connected to something behind the bulbs ( I can't recall the specifics, sorry, maybe you know about it?).

Took them (the dealer) awhile but they fixed it. Is this weird or what? Any knowledge about this problem? The inner workings of the analog gauges?

It's driving me crazy to look at and I don't trust the same dealer to fix it. I can tell you that when you hit the accelerator all the gages lite up a little for a second then return to the previous level (I've seen this in other Beretta's even read it in a manual a long time ago). That makes me think Alternator..yuck..my stomach hurts.

Also... my power windows are cranky lately. Sometimes very slow and sometimes normal (there's that electrical element again). On the passenger side, when the window slides down, it sounds like it is grinding, but raises just fine.

Appreciate your reading this and hope it made some sense to you.

Thanks -
Nate

A. Behind the instrument cluster is a flexible printed circuit board. All the gauges, lights and instrument voltage regulator are hooked up to it. I suspect what has happened is this board is bad and causing the lights to act crazy. There is no way to actually test the board, so it is assumed that if all the inputs are correct, the circuit board is bad.

I would have the charging system tested, if you have the original battery in it, that could explain the increase in the bulb brightness. Some increase is normal, but I would recommend a charging system check to make sure all is well.

As for the power windows, it sounds like either the motor or the window regulator on the passenger side is about ready to bite the dust. The slowness may be due to the weak battery and I would wait until we're sure we have a good battery and charging system before we condemn them.