Gauge lights and lead lights not working

[panamarojo]

This is on a 90 TSI, it was working fine earlier today but now when you switch the lights to turn on the gauge cluster it does not turn on, and the lead lights wont turn on. The head lights work if you move the light switch one more time for the head lights. I checked fuses and couldnt find a bad one, any ideas?

 

[gofer]

not sure what lead lights are but im going to give this one a shot since nobody else has. my guess is you blew your tail light fuse and in doing so none of your speedo gauges, hvac controls, running lights, or tail lights light up when you turn your headlights on. if this is the case find the tail lamp fuse (15A) and pull it then remove all 6 tail light bulbs, both side marker bulbs, both headlight blinker bulbs, and your radio as well since some of the wiring back there could be pinched behind it. to test it buy (or check one out from autozone) a DMM (digital multimeter) and set it to read DC Amps (DCA) then put the ground to the battery and the positive lead where the fuse would be and flip the headlight switch. check your DMM for a 15A reading, if it is 15A then start putting the bulbs back one at a time and checking the DMM. you'll find the culprit, odds are its a bulb internally shorted.
if you've removed all the bulbs and its still reading shorted on the DMM use this... http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/articles-electrical-wiring/179481-finding-short-partial-short-battery-drain.html

 

[panamarojo]

Cool thanks I found it, the fuse was blown and its due to something with the cd player.