Please Help

i have a 2007 Mountaineer premier, my puddle lights do not light when I unlock the doors, the dome lights do not come on as well, and tonight I noticed that I can not change the brightness on my dash lights..............I would greatly appreciate any ideas on where to start, I have not checked fuses. I did take it to my local dealer and they told me it was my door ajar indicator in the door. This was when I thought it was just the dome lights.

Does the information center indicate that a door is ajar? It is a reasonable guess, but typically that would cause the interior light to remain on and cause an alert.

You should start by checking fuses. I have the wiring diagram for my 2004 Mountaineer Premier, I'm not sure how much different it would be from the 2007.

-Rod

Ok I checked the fuse its good, the information center is accurate. I am wondering if it is the dimmer switch, when turned all the way to the left, instead of turning the lights off it turns then on, and when moved all the way to the right it turns them on as well. Anyone know how to test it?

The interior dimmer circuit appears to be "smarter" than the average instrument illumination circuit. The dimmer switch assembly appears to have the potentiometer for the dimmer and that voltage feeds back to the Smart Junction Box (SJB) via the white/brown wire at terminal 6 of the dimmer switch connector. There is also a 2-tap series resistance network for "Defeat" versus "Undefeated" feature of the switch. That sense voltage also feeds back to the SJB on the gray/orange wire at terminal 2. Finally there's a switch to ground for the dome lamp based on if the switch is in "Defeat" or "Dome" position which is the green/blue wire at terminal 5. The brown wire at terminal 4 is the ground provided by the SJB. The illumination function appears to be provided via the SJB rather than directly from the dimmer switch.

Sooo, it may be worth starting with a dimmer switch assembly from a salvage yard, unless you are comfortable enough with a multimeter to check the functions of the dimmer switch outputs to the SJB.

-Rod