Subarmax

We're in Davenport, down by Lake Roosevelt.

^ For real, no one?

Looking to hear from other Subaru owners in our area. Thx!

Ok, I'll do all that tomorrow, and sorry if I seemed huffy, a little frazzled by this Subi I suppose, working on it is a claustrophobic nightmare to me, I like working on trucks, tractors. I have a fleet of old (60's) Dodges, simple and plenty of room around everything. I'd found the two wires going to the dimmer under the column a couple days ago, a Clear (odd) coated one, and Green if I remember correctly. Going across these two with the Ohmmeter would get you 0 resistance in one direction, and something like 1.825 (k?) at the other extreme. I tested the other dimmer (from the Legacy), basically the same results, except the high reading was a bit lower, like 1.325. I suppose I could test it on Laura's car, see I get the same type of readings, and possibly eliminate the turn signal mounted dimmer for good. This is exactly why I bought another Impreza ;-) It's great to have two of the same vehicles, and I'm really impressed with Subarus overall... although I have to say if her car had given me fits like this all along I wouldn't have been that crazy about getting another one. Fix this dashlight issue, get a new windshield put in, repair/or replace the broken power antenna and the car will be very nice. Then there was the matter of the pool of water under the spare tire... Any ideas there? Thx

Actually, I only took out two bulbs, the center heater illumination bulb, and the shifter, which in fact had a blown filament. All grounds from the dash area are very good, no resistance to other grounds under the hood. I finally got to the "dimmer module", or whatever Subaru calls it. This is what I found. Black is a Ground, and in fact the ground is very good. Green is 12V Yellow is 12 V, both constant with key on/headlight switch on. The other three wires are Blue/Blue/Brown, none of which are doing anything regardless of what I'm doing with the dimmer on the turn signal arm. Grounding the Yellow wire (with module disconnected) instantly gets you dash lights, which are all apparently AOK. So, the module could be faulty? or... I've had the bad luck of having both my original, and other dimmer switch (which came from a low mileage '93 Legacy) be defective. At any rate, I probably going to leave the interior gutted, make a jumper from the Yellow wire to ground so I have dash lights and drive it that way until I get get to town and get another module. Nice to finally see some dash lights! ;-)

Hi, and thx for the help. When i mentioned power on both sides of one of the dashlight bulb pigtails, same on both cars, except on the car I'm trying to fix, the one side doesn't lose power as you turn up the dashlights as it does on the car that works... I meant with the bulb out, there's power (12V) to both sides of the "bulb", there's power to both sides of the pigtail, so nothing to do with a filament transfering power. One would be hard pressed to check for power with a bulb in, especially with the ultra dinky "Green" bulbs behind the heater controls... Not to sound too smart, and I'm always relearning something (early Alzheimers?), but I'm pretty well versed in electrical repair, Ohm's Law, etc... I graduated from an Automotive Technology program in 1990 (back when they actually taught starter and alternator rebuilding), followed up by another degree in Diesel/Heavy Equipment Repair. I worked in the field as a technician, for nearly 15 years before leaving the city for good and moving out to the country, where I work on a farm, and troubleshoot/diagnose electrical stuff all the time. I actually consider myself to be way above average when it comes to understanding (the first and most important step in repairing) electrical problems. When I went to school back in '88, the instructors told us "If you're flush, get a Fluke meter", they were made in Everett WA back then, not China... I still have that original Fluke 23. In fact I like the so much I have three of them, as well as an extensive set of electrical troubleshooting tools, 2 Snap On test lights, lots of leads, Weller Butane powered soldering gun. I solder/heatshrink all my connections/repairs, if I can humanly help it. So anyway, back to the car, I am leaning towards the module now, even though I don't like to get parts unless I'm 100% sure that it needs it. I can probably get it from a junk yard, and hope that it's not defective. In the meantime I'll get back to the car today, after we do the snow tires on the wife's car, and other stuff. Here's a post from last fall on the net where someone's Legacy was suffering from what I guess was the very same problem, the answers given weren't too bright... http://rspauto.com/answers/the-dash-lights-on-my-1993-subaru-legacy-dont-work-and-i-cant-figure-out-why-what-can-be-the-causes/#comment-135564

Wish I could post under happier circumstances, and I've been trying to get help with this on an another site, but I'm hoping this is the place to find people that are very familiar with this vintage of Impreza. I bought the car a couple weeks ago, really sweet car minus a few problems (didn't even notice this one on the test drive...). It's a Forest Green '95 Impreza Wagon 2.2 A/T, Tan interior, 144K, needed windshield, pass side frt drive axle replaced, there was water under the spare, other little things. I've been driving/maintaining my wife's '93 Impreza Sedan (bought brand new by her Mom) for 5 years now, and I eventually fell in love with it, although the fact that it wasn't a Hatchback always drove me a little nuts. Speaking of which... This car is driving me NUTS!!! I've spent hours troubleshooting the damn thing... (Yes, I have power at the fuse). Bought a replacement turn signal arm with dimmer (not the problem) so I'll return that, and my shifter bulb was out, but replacing it with a new one makes no difference. The dimmer module? After finally tearing into my wife's Impreza to see how a properly working system works, this is what I found. All of the dash/shifter, etc, lights have power on both sides of the bulb pigtails. This is really weird, both power, no ground. When you turn up the dashlights at the switch, one of the bulb terminals dims (loses power), and I suppose becomes more and more grounded? On my car, the '95 wagon, I have power to both sides of the bulbs, but it stays the same no matter what you do to the dimmer switch (acts exactly the same with a different turn signal arm plugged into the wiring harness), therefore no dashlights as you can't light a bulb with 12V on each side of it. Is this the dimmer module no working? I suppose it could be, although the guy at the dealership told me that the part is $100 and he's never sold one, but a few turn signal arms. I really need to get this fixed so I can drive the car and get on with other things I need to do. Really appreciate some help here. Thx!!! ***