My 2003 Honda Accord EX has a problem with the backlighting on the radio and the ac controls. All the lights have gone out, but everything else on it seems to work still. I have looked for a blown fuse but could not find one. Any suggestions?

03accordcoupe

hey guys.to all the people with your 03+ accord radio wiring problem.honda just came out with new waranty for your radio that applies to your original or extendet waranty,witch means:you dont have to pay for fixing your radio if it doesnt light up.just take it to your dealer and tell them to fix it!!thats all..

RMG

I had the same issue with my 2003 Honda Accord, I called the 1-800-999-1009 and mentioned the #04-027 bulletin, they asked what Honda Dealership I will be going to.
I told them Avondale Honda in Arizona.
Avondale Honda Service Rep call me with in 48 hours to set up an appointment. I took
the car in and the bad board was replaced at no cost to me.

Thanks to everyone on this blog for all of the information.

pele

I'm located in Boucherville, Quebec. Called the local dealership and they refused to replace the radio. they wanted to charge me 800$. Called up Honda Canada, took my vin number, told me that my car was covered under this service bulletin. The dealership that refused to repair at first called me back for an replacement appointment at no cost.

it's done and it works - thanks to this forum I'm 800$ richer.

Honda de Boucherville is the dealership that got their hands twisted by Honda Canada to replace at no cost.

joefetters

This problem just happened to my 2003 Accord EX V6 with 51000 miles on it. I called my local dealer in Durham, NC USA and they replaced some circuit board in the radio for free the next day, with no appointment needed! Problem solved, ZERO hassle.

Honda is aware of this problem, the warranty for this problem is now 7 years/100k miles (according to Honda America Customer Service). Call the dealer, they should replace/fix for FREE.

JamesRay

I just got my honda back from the dealer with the same issue. They replaced my head unit with a new one. I did not have to pay anything, They told me that honda was taking care of them. They told me that there had not been enough to have a recall but they fixed it, gave me a new radio. Just an FYI......

MillardDJr

My light went out about 18 months ago, right after the warranty expired. I went through all the hurdles of calling American Honda, then never got around to bringing it in for service. Brought it in finally today, and the dealership told me that the warranty had been extended on this part and would be replaced free of charge. Also, they no longer need to replace the entire system, just the card (which has been re-designed to prevent this issue).

I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but glad to see Honda did the right thing...

StevenB

I have had the same issue with my Honda. I called 1-800-999-1009 and mentioned the #04-027 bulletin and they asked what dealership I wanted to take it too. I had to get an estimate from the dealer and Honda is paying for the new circuit board. I have to pay $95.00 for labor.

During the same conversation with Honda I mentioned my transmission is starting to slip in 3rd or 4th gear. Since I have 112K miles on the car I figured I was on my own, but Honda agreed to pay for all parts and labor relating to the transmission.

That's why I didn't fight very hard for the $95.00.

pakamat

I haave the same problem, my car is over 40 K miles and ofcourse out of warranty.
Thank you to the people that started and then have provided input in this thread. I was so worried that I would have to spend a lot of money and keep go through hell to get the issue fixed. I just called the American Honda as sugessted in the beining of hte hread by a few pepole and they right away told me that problem is covered as an extended warranty till 100 K miles or 10 yrs. So I can take it to any dealership and can get it fixed free of cost. HONDA IS GOOD. THANK yOU again everybody, im so relieved.. HAIL GOOGLE

Bunkie

Thanks Kirill! My wife's radio display is now working again thanks to you and mystifield and hypo! They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, your pictures were worth a thousand bucks! Her display went out when she had about 95,000 miles, but I didn't find out about the extended warranty until after she'd gone over 100,000. We have a very early '03, bought in Oct, 2002, manufactured in Japan. The radio serial # is one of the first thousand and was manufactured in June, 2002.

don juan

Let me tell you my story about this problem.

I recently bought an 03 Accord off of eBay. Got a great deal from a respected dealership and everything was great... EXCEPT the knobs and controls on the AC panel would not light up when my lights were on. The radio would light up and display just fine, and I could even see the green status lights that indicated whether the AC was on or not, but the back-lighting for the words on the controls and knobs would not work.

I googled the problem and found this topic. I saw that Honda was covering this up to 7 years / 100k miles, so I immediately printed off service bulletin 04-027 and went armed with it to my local dealership.

That was my first mistake. I should have contacted corporate Honda first.

The dealership took it in for a diagnostic and told me my problem was unrelated to service bulletin 04-027 because my radio display was working fine. I was told that the car's aftermarket alarm system may have caused the problem and that possibly there was a surge or spike that caused all of the backlights to short out. I would have to pay over $100 for them to replace the light bulbs, and it wasn't even guaranteed that this would work.

So, it was at this point I called corporate Honda. After describing my problem to them, they told me I should be covered and to go back to the dealership. I took the car back, and the dealership said the same thing. Then corporate Honda told me that since the dealership is their "eyes and ears", they must go by the dealership's diagnostic.

Fortunately, I know a guy who has a lot of clout at this particular dealership. He talked to their service department and they agreed to replace the radio circuit board for free even though they said this was not the problem. Wouldn't you know it... when I picked up the car, the backlighting was WORKING!

If I didn't have hookups at the dealership, I would have been screwed out of this free repair. I plan on calling corporate Honda to explain to them what all happened. Although I can't really blame the dealership so much as the exact wording on the service bulletin for the symptom is:

The audio display and controls (knobs, buttons, bars) of the audio-HVAC display module are dim or dark.

Well, my audio display definitely WASN'T dark. I could see the radio LCD display just fine... everything ELSE was dark, and replacing the radio circuit board DEFINITELY fixed the problem.

I am going to contact corporate Honda so hopefully they will clarify this on their service bulletin.

If your Accord is having problems like described here, but your actual radio LCD display is NOT dark, don't give up. You should be covered under this service bulletin!