since i got my car, i had very minor problems with my gauge lights. every once in a while, couple times a month, they would go out all of the sudden, no flickering or anything. i lightly smack the dash in the center, and it would always come back on and stay.
havent had any problems with the stereo.

so i take it in tuesday to get an alarm put in, i get it back and the dash lights are off almost all the time, and my cd player, it doesnt flicker, but it goes back and forth from light to dark.

i called the guy and he tells me "your car is old and things are bound to go wrong" and that it couldnt be their fault because he didnt mess with anything there. however, he did tell me they used the illumination wire for the alarm. the alarm works perfectly. im thinking maybe he gave a little pull on the illumination wire coming from way inside the dash and pulled it almost all the way out. how difficult is it to get up where it would be, and about where do i start looking?

also, how does the car know whether its light or dark out?

That tells me right there that the guy is an idiot, like most car stereo/alarm install guys. He should have at least offered to take a look at it.

The illumination wire has nothing to do with telling you its dark out or light out. All it does is "illuminate" your dash when you turn on your parking lights. The illumination wire is hooked up to aftermarket cd players to dim them at night, so they aren't superbright and kill your eyes.

Check the connection for illumination on your stereo. Follow it back underneath your dash. Make sure all connections are good. Probably even take out your gauge assembly and tighten all the screws on the back of it. Dont take out the gauges themselves, leave them in the assembly. You'll know what i mean if you take it apart.

More than likely you have a bad/loose connection or something with the illumination wire. I agree he pulled on the wire.

i knew it wasnt a magic wire that sensed light or anything, i was just wondering where the sensor is that detects the brightness.

There isn't a light sensor on any of my firebirds. You can install a sensor to detect darkness and automatically turn on your lights though.

how does it know when to turn the gauge lights on? mine only come on if its dark out.

Check to see if the guy used scotch locks to install the alarm. he could have severed some of the wiring.

wtf are scotch locks? i took it up to the shop today, asked him to show me what he was talking about with the illumination switch.
he pulls off my lower left hand dash piece, where the fog light switch is. i told him my outside lights were all fine, and that it was the gauge lights and the stereo which i had had no trouble with before.
again, he says they messed with nothing that has anything to do with the gauges or the stereo, and that the only thing thye messed with was the foglights.

he said my cd player was probably dimming from the voltage pull of the amps. says it may be related to my "cheapo alternator"

i explain to him thats a custom 200 amp alternator, and that i had no trouble with the cd player dimming or the dash lights before he touched it, and he looks at me like im some sort of jagoff.

says there is nothing he can do about it and refuses to even take a look at it. im really wishing i had taken my alarm business elsewhere. if any of you are wondering, this was thumpin car audio in hagerstown, md.

im almost positive this is just a bad ground or something with the dimmer, because the cd player is switching between its day and night brightnesses, and the dash doesnt always realize its dark. still dont know where to start looking for the wiring for this light sensor