There are often bulbs behind your instrument panel, heating and ventilation controls and your stereo. When these start to burn out, parts of your controls will be brighter than others or it will fail to light up at all. The dashboard and interior is typically comprised of overlapping panels and trim that snap together. Think of peeling back layers of an onion to access these bulbs – you want to work your way to the middle. A set of plastic panel pullers is helpful when prying off the trim pieces. If you use a screwdriver, you will likely scratch the plastic pieces. Eventually, you will get to the bolts holding the component in place – remove these and then you can access the bulbs that backlight the instrumentation or other controls.
Hans Angermeier has produced over 100,000 videos showing drivers how to fix things on their cars. He has broad expertise on basic repair procedures covering the majority of cars on the road.