For the past few months my dashboard lights have flickered once in a while, and sometimes its hard to get them to come on. Yesterday the dash lights went out for good, and shortly thereafter the turn signals stopped working. Went to start it today and the radio wouldn't come on either and the rear ABS light was on. I banged on the dash a few times and the ABS light went off and the radio came on. Still no dash lights or turn signals. Any suggestions on where to start? Thanks.

 

Start checking harness connections under the dash, do the shake test, start shaking some wires under the dash and see what happens. I saved myself literally thousands or costly repairs just by shaking some wires and what didnt work started working.

 

I did do a little shaking with little luck although i imagine theres either a loose wire, multiple wires being pinched, or a dirty connector. I'm guessing everythign just plugs together, but is there a main ground for all the stuff I'm talking about in the dash?

 

Most vehicles I've worked on have a main dash ground, but there could be other smaller ones.

 

Ends up 2 wires that go into the headlight switch on the dash had cracked insulation and were shorting periodically, and that one of the metal contact pieces was not making good contact. The short actually melted the grey plastic connector quite a bit. Anyway, I fixed it and everything is working fine now.