Dome light doesn’t work, fuse is good. Took the dash apart and it came on, but very dim. If I plug in the radio or pin d on back of the cluster the dome goes out. What would be causing it to go dim? How would I figure why it turns off once I plug the radio/cluster? Any help would be appreciated as it’s affecting radio and power door locks.

Truck is a 1999 SR5 4x4

Does it only affect the front dome light? What about the rear dome light or any other interior lights you may have?

it sounds like something may be significantly drawing power. is this a stock radio? how about ciggy lighter or electric fans going? to start some troubleshooting, use a voltmeter to verify that your 4R's battery voltage is nominal. also, pull the dome bulb out and hook it directly to a 12v source. if the bulb lights brightly when directly connected to some other source, then hook it directly to your 4R's battery and see if it lights brightly. also, see what happens with your other devices (like radio and power door locks) when there's nothing in the dome light socket.

how long has this been happening? did anything change recently? is this with the vehicle running or off? or either? if it's with the vehicle running, what is your alternator output voltage?

It affects both front and mid dome light, didn’t try it with the rear. It is an aftermarket radio. I did test the battery and it was 12.6 volts, so that’s good.

It’s only been doing it for a couple days, when I bought it a month ago the dome lights only worked in the on position, the clock and radio worked too.

I was trying to figure out why the door position didn’t work and following the advice of @TheDurk I found on a thread from a few years ago I started to unplug stuff, and that’s when the clock and radio died and dome lights got dim. Plugged everything back in and now nothing works

I assume this is happening with the engine running as well as with the engine off? Have you gotten to a condition where the light is dim and measured the voltage and amperage across the fuse? You may be able to isolate where the problem is coming from by checking those numbers and seeing how they change based on what you have plugged or unplugged.

For me I had bad door sensors.


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Did that cause dim lights? I would expect that to either cause the dome to always be on or to never turn on depending on how the switches failed.

Dim, flicker or not on at all. Contacts were bad.

I got the autozone life time warranty ones. They are not cheep.

The door switch creates the ground to light the light. Unplug the door switch and ground the wire the switch plugs into. It should light the light. On the 96 all 4 were bad to some degree. On the 97 limited front two were bad. On my 97 SR5 only the hatch is bad.

Is it bright in the always on position?

Edit: the drawing shows an integration relay in the middle of all of it on my 97 EWD.






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huh, that's really interesting. also a bit odd that a failing switch would make the light dim. you'd think it would be a binary kind of thing. maybe it makes and breaks contact like a confused relay.

my driver door switch went bad and not only id did it effect all the things your talking about , but made my door remote act crazy. While the dome did not go dim, I imagine it could depending on the switch or the grounding

I'm running into issues with getting an adequate LED dome light bulb...not sure if it is just my 2000 4runner or what, but none of the light bulbs I ordered fit. They are all too long.

1st. The Dome light is the one in the middle of the car right? If not then I am asking in regards to the middle one.

2nd. I tried to order from multiple sources such as Oznium and SuperBrightLED. They were all too big.

Thanks for the help in advance!

For my 97 DE3175 is the lamp and any led with that part number should fit. I bought 5w superb rights and when it burned out I got an led from autozone both fit perfect.


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Ok cool I’ll try that out. Tired of paying these small companies shipping and return fees. Such bs. Thanks! Fingers crossed it works!

So it looks like I may have a bit more testing to do. I, going to guess its not the door sensors because why would plugging the radio and or dash in effect the lights? I will try taking the sensors of my parts rig and see if they change anything.

Probably not the door sensor. If your other doors do the same thing as the drivers door, its somewhere else. In my 2001 tacoma(same exact light fixture) it is dim all the time except just before the timer turns off it will flash bright. Also if I turn on my map lights it works perfect or if the key is on any of the on positions it works perfect. I need to test the voltage at the light and see if it is different under those circumstances.