I'm curious and want to know if the rest of you suffer from this same issue. I drive my car at night often. The odometer has very good lighting and can be read easily. The trip meter, on the other hand, can barely be seen. It's annoying because my fuel consumption mental calculation comes from observing the fuel gauge and monitoring the trip meter. I've wondered if there was a bulb in the cluster that is burned out that should light it up? Being an '85 model car, it has the 5 digit odometer and the trip meter has to be wound to reset, rather than just pushing the button. Do I live with it, or should it be easily seen in the dark?

 

You've likely got something burned out or missing. Both my '84 (same mechanism, different face design) and a friend's '85 gauges are perfectly visible in the dark. However, both of us had to repair our gauges when we got the cars, and both of us had random bulbs either burned out or not even installed.

 

Thanks for the feedback. That is what I was hoping to hear. Looks like I'm going to be pulling a cluster in the near future.