My son's 2001 Honda Civic has in instrument panel that goes completely dead at times. It has done this twice in the last six months. The first time it lasted for only a few minutes.

The panel was completely dead, gauges would not work, fuel indicated empty, temp gauge stayed at Cold, no tach rpms, no speedometer, no shift indcator for the trans, no odometer.

The last time it did this (two days) was for about 20 miles of stop, restart, errand running over about 3 hours. After sitting overnight in my garage the next day, it works fine. This happened during the day, so I cannot tell if the panel lights were working.

I have not had it to a mechanic, as it will not go dead when it goes to the shop?

A service advisor told me he thought it might not be getting a feed from the ignition switch, so he told me to jiggle the ignition key.

Any other thoughts?

 

Jimmy, I cannot give you a solution but I can also state that my 2004 Civic with 35K is doing the same thing. I stop, turn off the motor, restart and I have everything back to normal. I also would appreciate any suggestions out there for this issue....

 

I don't think jingling the key would help as if it's not getting a signal from the ign cyl then the rest of car wouldn't either and i'm sure the engine would no be running.

All i can say is i have not had this issue with a civic before, but I did have a 1994 chrysler intrepid at one point that did the exact same thing. I'd be driving and then my entire dash would shut off, and the tranny would go into 'safe-mode' of only second gear. It was quite an event to happen on the highway when the tranny tried to down**** into second :S It turned out for that car it wqas the body control module, sort of like the ECM, except for everything else on the car but the engine systems.

I am not familiar with the civic computer setup, but i don't think they have a seperate body computer. I'd guess your most likely cause (the dashes are all electronic these days) is the connector on the back of the dash is just loose. Before going to a mechanic, if you are able, pull the dashboard out and check the connector for any looseness, then pull it off and look for any corrosion on the metal pickups (appears as a greenish crust). If this turns out to be your problem you saved a few bucks, if it isn't, at least you learned how to take a dash out