99 Sunfire Odometer light

Hi!

Is the odometer on your car mechanical or does it have a digital display?

For a mechanical (analog) odometer, you would probably find a simple burned out light bulb. Some GM vehicles have sockets for these, others use a kind of bulb that twists in to contact points on a sort of printed "circuit board" like material. You might also find a soldered "grain of sand" light bulb in place.

If it has a digital display, the instrument panel may need to be "reconditioned"...but you probably won't have to pay any $615 to do it. If you know how to get it out of the car and have some experience repairing electronics, you could go around and check for bad solder, loose connectors or even missing/low voltages. Most of these displays are of the vacuum fluorescent type, but it doesn't sound like yours is since you can read it with a flashlight. Once you have the panel out, you may find that the display is lit with something like a "grain of sand" bulb or similar.

There are companies on the 'net who repair all digital instrument panels. While yours doesn't sound like it is all digital, they might have an idea as to what is wrong.

William

I've done a little additional searching on the web and learned that the instrument cluster is a known problem with this model year Sunfire. It looks like there is a standard 194 bulb that is soldered into place behind the odometer. I'm going try and replace it myself after the holidays. I'll let everyone know how it goes. If it works great, if not the unit will be out and I can send it to someone experienced for the repair. Thanks for the feedback.

JLMyers