My courtesy lamps do not come on when I open a door.... and my dimmer switch doesnt work for the dash lights... I checked the fuses and all good.... Got any other tests to try?

Welcome, and if you would put the year and trim level of your vehicle in your profile (link at the top of the page) it will help us give you the proper advice for your car.

My car is a 2000 with the series II engine SE

Does this problem occur all of the time? If the light sensor detects daylight, it keeps the interior lights from coming on. Do the courtesy lights light when it is dark? Also, if you turn on the headlights, or fog lights, manually, during daylight - the dash lights at full brightness with no control over dimming. Again, it should act normally, with the ability to dim, during darkness.

I can manually turn on the courtesy lights by turning the ****. The dash lights are always on at the highest intensity. And i do understand it needs to be dark before the courtesy lights turn on.. Anouther point to make is that my twilight sentenial does not work. Could this be the sensor on my dash?

There are other possible causes, but the ambient light sensor is probably the easiest and cheapest to replace. Try removing it, and then check the resistance and see if it varies with the amount of light hitting it.

ooo man check this out.. So i bought this car from a government surplus center.. The car'* first owner was an agent.. What they did was stick a continuous wire into the pluggin coming out of the dash... Therefore all i had to do was remove the wire and connect back into the light sensor...WOW That controlled my dash light brightness, twilight sentenial, and courtesy lamps. So everything is up and running.... Thanks for the tips!

Ahhh.....ok....so, they didn't want the interior lights coming on when they opened the door. Many law enforcement agencies do that. Good find! Glad to hear that you've got it fixed!

I have the exact same problem,,no courtesy lights(all doors and map lights when i unlock the car) the dorr lights stay off even when car running,,the dimmer switch does nothing,,dash lights stay at full brightness and i cant even shut them off,,day or night, i can turn map lights on by turning the dimmer switch to on, but still no door lights..fuses are fine,,,sometimes everything works as normal. is there a relay that controls this function? that would explain it working sometimes,,,,plz help

DTL, what year and model do you have?