ajdigerati

So the warranty on my car expired a couple of months ago and of course now I run into a problem.

Some of the lights on my steering wheel buttons (Cruise Control being one) is out.

Can I change these out? If so How?

I spoke to my dealer and they will not do anything for me even though my 4 years is up, but I am well below the 50K mark.

Suggestions on how fix this myself will be appreciated.

kthai417

that sucks, i would try a different dealership. seems like this is a common issues with lights going out. some of the letters on mine is out too. there is a section in the DIY garage, looks like more work than i want....so i plan to just live with it

lilsid112

iTrader: (7)

My cruise control section went out a few months ago. I call up the dealer and they wanted about 100 to replace them. What sucks is you have to remove the airbag to replace them. Ill replace them later on down the line. You could try another dealer and see if they can goodwill it for you.

nfnsquared

Yes, go to the 3G Service Departmant (sticky link in main forum) and look under "lighting".

cjTL

iTrader: (2)

It's not too difficult to DIY the replacement, will save you a couple hundred bucks easily. As mentioned, you do have to take the airbag out. But no great shakes there as long as you disconnect the battery and don't throw the damn thing on the ground when you take it out.

ggesq

iTrader: (1)

I would suggest if your already taking the airbag out and replacing one bulb might as well pony out an additional 10-20 dollars and replace the rest of the bulbs. My

SlimTL

Not to thread jack....

but do the letters on the shifter light up?

I searched and couldn't find the answer. I even searched the service manual with no luck.

cjTL

iTrader: (2)

THIS! Once one starts going...the others will follow suit soon. One of the lights behind the buttons around my navi screen went out this past summer. And then not even two weeks later another bulb blew. Asked the dealer how much they'd charge to replace them and I nearly choked ($200+). Took the plunge and did it myself. I ordered new bulbs for every socket since I personally have no intention of ever ripping apart my center console again while I own this car. Took a couple hours total, but man is it worth it. Save some $ and feel accomplished after.

Good stuff.

Khalil.e

Any DIY for this? Also had climate control lights go out.

ajdigerati

Thank for all the replies guys. I have not decided if I am going to tackle this myself yet, but I just spent 20 minute looking for in DIY and could not find it. Do you have link?

ajdigerati

I consider myself pretty handy, but I don't know that I am brave enough to take my car apart. Every time I attempt to remove a panel, I inevitable break a clip or something on the panel making the situation worse and more expensive.

DuoDSG

adj, I'm in the same boat. Just this week there was a thread in the 3G general forum about this and I posted in there the thread that had the DIY information for this.

For me I'm not limited to just the steering wheel controls being dead (light-wise), but also the entire set of climate controls to the right of my navigation unit. I ordered the bulbs a few days ago and I am going to do the DIY for it.

It might seem really intimidating, but honestly, don't sweat it. The DIYs are really well written, and if they have pictures, they are even better. AZ has saved me a ton of Washingtons over the last year as I worked on my TL and it was so worth it. Not only do you save money, but you also get the satisfaction of knowing how to work on your car.

It all started with me replacing my radio/CD unit and removing the entire center console, and then I changed my air filter, then I did my own brake pads and just last week I removed my bumpers and put them back on no sweat. You can do it, so no worries. The more you do it, the easier it gets...and the more confident you feel tackling other stuff.

Look for the thread in the general forum about it (or search for my past posts- you'll find it in there too). Just beware because the bulbs for different parts of the car's interior lighting are different. Look at the parts manuals to get that info and you'll get what you need. No more, no less.

Mug

Keep searching on this site for DIYs. You'll feel so much better when you do it yourself. I've applied this theory to everything in my life. My dryer broke 3 years ago. We had house guests so we called Sears and the dryer worked again after a $400 bill. A week ago, same problem. So I did a little research and $8 later (same fix as stated on the invoice from Sears), I fixed it myself.

wahshi

iTrader: (4)

Since you're gonna have to replace those lights anyway, why not go LED (great DIY)...

https://acurazine.com/forums/3g-tl-2004-2008-93/g-100-diy-led-interior-part-iii-steering-wheel-leds-audio-cruise-modules-763640/

ajdigerati

Thanks for all the replies guys! I have not had time to take another look back into this thread for a while (School, Work, Kids, Holidays, etc.) concerning this issue. Now my CD player stopped working (funny how these things know when their warranties have expired). DuoDSG, where did you buy your replacement Radio and bulbs? I have an O6 TL w/ NAV, I assume the radio is different for non-Nav TL's

DuoDSG

I actually bought my replacement radio from someone here on the forum. You can easily find them on places like eBay for much less than if you bought it through the dealership. The only problem I found is that, if you have an 04, the radio needs to be from an 04 or the navigation voice won't work. Apparently Alpine changed the wiring harness after the initial year, so there are two connectors that got switched so therefore you have no navi voice giving you turn-by-turn directions. I always found it annoying, so it doesn't bother me not having it.

As for the bulbs for the radio, I just bought them from acuraoemparts.com since that way I was able to find out exactly which bulb I needed (since they have the parts diagrams right there). Pretty cheap, and easy to install.


As for your question, the radio units are actually the exact same between the navi-equipped and non-navi versions of the TL. The only thing you have to worry about is the model year of the radio/CD player, for the reason I stated before with the navi voice, and also because some of the newer ones (I believe '07 and onward) had MP3 support and AcuraLink for traffic. However, installing a newer radio onto your car won't give you the additional features, which is why I just stuck with a 2005 radio for my 2004 TL.

If you have any questions or anything like that, don't hesitate to let me know. If you need me to pull up the page so you can see exactly what bulbs they are and the part numbers you may need, it'll be a snap for me to find it since I've obviously done it before.

Good luck!

gldovas

So this is a long shot, and I see no one has posted in 7 years! but all of the lights on my steering wheel and some of the lights under the screen stopped working. Like the menu, back, settings, enter buttons. All of those. Any idea what's wrong or how much the dealership will price me? I tried to follow the posts here but seriously it's like a different language. Also, I took it in to look at because the guy on the phone was so certain he could fix it quickly but in reality they were all stumped.

Joecop67

Hollywood3283

WDPanda

Steering wheel bulbs are soldered on into the switch

Hollywood3283

Hollywood3283

Hollywood3283