Ford Focus: Dashboard lights not working -

>Anyone know or had problems with dashboard lights not working. The 

My 2001 Focus Wagon did that.in 2003. I took it to the dealer. Thankfully I
had an extended warranty. They replaced a "large" portion of the dash wiring
harness. On New Years Eve 2004, my headlight switch area began SMOKING with a
pungent burning smell. Again I took it to the dealer, This time it took over 2
weeks to again replace part of the lighting wiring and switches. They indicated
that actual hours charged by the tech was more than12. I don't know what the
parts cost was.
I traded the car in last week
G

Thanks for all the advise guys. i finally removed the fuse and bent
the connectors a little in opposite directions. This would help the
connection inside the fusebox. On the left hand side I saw a lot of
wires bundled together which i assume went into the fusebox. There
were 2 bolts stopping the fusebox from coming out which i may attempt
to play with on Saturday. I did however wiggle the bunch of wires to
try and "connect" something.

When i tried the lights, the dashboard lights came on. It has now
been 3 days with working lights whereas before i touched the wiring,
the lights would go off at least 1 or 2 times daily so it is a vast
improvement so far.

On saturday i will attempt to remove the bolts and the fusebox to see
if i can get further into the wires to push them into the fusebox.

But thanks for the advice so far... it has definitely helped and
improved my situation.

Just to give my input on whether we should touch anything on our cars,
please note this is a forum for people to share ideas. We are here to
share what we know and learn what we don't.

For those of you who are just here to criticise, i mean why are you
even looking at ford forums if all you do is go to the dealer when you
have a problem?

For the rest of us, all ideas are welcome so we can attempt to
undertake simple repairs ourselves. If however we have done our bit
and still cannot rectify the fault, we will all do what you do in the
first place and call in the experts.

I mean what's the harm in trying? If you are half clued up, you can't
do much damage.

> I mean what's the harm in trying? If you are half clued up,
you can't 

Generally *much* less than the "Technicians" at the dealerships I
have experience with!

Chris

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