I recently purchased my 2013 g37x about a month ago and realized there was no backlight. I have gone through and checked every fuse in the car making sure that nothing was blown. The backlight on the window controls and the light indicating that indicates buttons are on (ac, defrost, etc)shows however there is no backlight for PRNDL, heater/ac, and radio/navigation. I tested all 3 fuse boxes and everything looked completely fine, I am really stumped. I am trying to work with the Lexus dealership where I purchased the car from but they wont really respond to me. I tried going into the Infiniti dealership but they wanted $180 just to look at the car, which is a lot in the case that they end up wanting like 800 to replace the whole center console. Any help would be appreciated, I've tried asking on reddit and a couple other places but I have yet to find anything.

picture of the issue, hard to see at night.

 

If you have not already, go here and grab a copy of the factory service manual for your car. For this issue you will need sections EXL (Exterior Lighting), INL (Interior Lighting), PCS (Power Control System), and PG (Power & Ground) though I would strongly suggest you download the whole manual while you can (and make a backup or two).

That said, now, with the headlight switch turned to ON, (not AUTO), do:

• Your rear parking, license plate, corner lights illuminate?
• Does your gauge cluster dim?
• Glove box lamp illuminate?
• Mirror Switch (NOT window switch) illuminate?
• Ambient light (next to sunroof switch?

In the interim, did you check any of the fuses located in the IPDM/er? This is the large fuse block to the left of the battery mounted on the inner fender. Fuse #53 (marked "TAIL/ILLUMI") supplies power to the illumination circuit.

This should get you started.

 

Okay so the parking lights turn on, license plate light turns on, and the corner lights turn on. The gauge cluster doesn't dim since i have it on max brightness, glove box lamp does not illuminate, mirror switch does not illuminate, and the ambient light is not on i dont think

 

Good. That tells me that the switch, BCM, and IPDM/er elay are all working.

Do you have / know how to use a digital multimeter? If so, the next step is to check fuse #53.

You will first run a continuity check on the fuse. These fuses are tiny and sometimes a casual look-see isn't enough. If the fuse passes continuity, then you would test to see if the IPDM is sending power to the fuse.

 

I’ve already gone in and checked every fuse with a fuse checker and everything came up fine. I’ll go and check 53 again though