Lately my mothers '96 RS camaro has been acting up. While the lights are on, sometimes they flicker and seem to go dim, all of the headlights and interior lights do and this morning the car died all of a sudden. Sometimes the instrument panel will go dead then come back on a second or so afterward. Today it made some kind of clunking noise and died again. When i went out to check it the car seemed fine, i found no faulty connections. But now the dimmer switch for the lights does not work. Could it have possibly blown a fuse or something. Any help?

 

Check to se if your battery posts are rusted or rotted or anything...check all of that around the battery. I had a problem with that once, the ar would flicker and die sometimes....all it was was a bad connection.

 

i checked everything again and the car seems to be running fine. Im still worried about what it will do tommorow though.

 

Might need a new coil.But first,check the coil wire ,see if the coil terminal is corroded,clean the terminal,replace the coil wire.Hope this helps.

 

You probably have a bad connection. The ones that are overlooked the most are the grounds at the engine and the frame. These should be cleaned up and reconnected. Also check the positive junction on the fender near the battery.

You are probably noticing the lights dim when something comes on and puts a load on the 12volt system. The first thing that comes to mind is the AC compressor. It will cycle when the defroster comes on.

Your problem is not ignition. It is far too isolated from the lights to cause your problem. If it could cause your lights to dim, it would not fire the engine.

You could however, have a problem with the battery or the alternator. It's easy to test. Use a voltmeter across the battery with the car off and you should measure at least 12.6 V. If not the battery is bad. Now have someone crank the car and measure the voltage across the battery while they crank it. It should not drop to less than 11 volts.

Remember that if the alternator where bad, it would not be charging the battery and may appear that the battery is bad. Now start the engine and measure the voltage across the battery and you should have close to 14 volts. If it is lower the alternator is probably bad. Another thing to check is revving the engine will usually make the alternator voltage higher.