Ford Focus Instrument Panel Illumination Not Working - Help!?

[K 4]

I have a ford 2003 focus and when I turn on the car and turn on my headlights, the instrument panel is very dim. I've tried using the dimmer switch but it doesn't work. Sometimes when I turn on the car the intrument panel is illuminated perfectly, but it quickly dims down when I try to take the car into reverse. The shifter's light also goes out when I do this too. So I'm guessing the shifter's light is connected to the instrument pane's light in some way? I'm not sure what needs replacing.

[Roger]

there appears to be a number of problems with the instrument cluster illumination you can go to a few websites and look into it and get more information www.carcomplaints.com has a lot of complaints for the ford fucus and www.arfc.org/complaints/2003/ford/fucus will also have plenty of information on complaints and any factory recalls and you can also do what I did first which is type ford focus instrument panel problems in the search web box and take a look at the results page

[Lamberto]

all these illumination bulbs derive their ground source from the cluster illumination dimming module.Since there is no blown fuse problem wire shorting is out of the question. Most probably just a loose connection or need to replace the module.