getting ready to install my replacement IPC and noticed on the side with interior lighting adjustment my IPC had more wires than the replacement. I used the 7 wire one and plugged it in and went ok. was just wondering if there was an option on that side or did mine have parade lighting adjustment and the replacement one did not. I did plug it in before I assembled everything back and it works good. i'll follow up with a post after i'm done. it's been quite a trip to say the least.

 

Is the replacement IPC from a 97-98? What is "parade lighting" ?

 

seller said 97. page 2-52 owners manual quote instrument panel brightness **** has an added feature called parade mode to assist you in seeing certain instrument panel controls if your headlamps are on in the daylight. just before turning the courtesy lamps on by turning the button all the way to the right,the radio,DIC display and heating and ac controls will come on at their max brightness. this will occur only with the park lamps or headlamps on. that's the only thing I can think of that would have more wires in that harness. my 97 replacement had 7 wires and my original 97 had more in that corner harness. that being said not having parade lighting is not a deal breaker to me. when I test fired the IPC up I did not check that part of the panel,just the DIC buttons. i'll have a little more info when I finish the install Friday and thanks for the reply

 

That's great, but you did check the p/n to make sure, correct?

Cool. I learned something today. Good thing I do not drive in parades.

 

Lucky, i got to look again at my IPC harnesses. I got too many ipc's in front of me right now. totally mixed up about the number wires going to the dimmer switch. looks like 7.i got an 11 wire I can't account for right now. trying to remember how I got it.

 

mystery solved and this one was about to drive me nuts. i'll try to keep this explanation as simple as possible because it almost confuses me. my IPC took a dump on me early last year. in Feb. this year i bought a 98 ipc. it had 105k on it. my 97 has 53k. not a good switch for me. a few weeks ago I bought a 97 IPC with 35k on it. these ipc's are not HUD equipped. my title in 2020 says 48k. I drive about 1k a year. being 79 this year i'll be dead by the time I get the mileage to match. so back to IPC mystery. there are 3 connections to make. main harness,DIC harness,and dimmer harness. green ones on the back comes already connected. main harness can't be messed up as it's the large one. DIC and dimmer harnesses are skinny white that go into the back and black into the switches. a HUD harness if so equipped is skinny white like the others and a little wider into the HUD connector. somewhere,somehow, the seller had a HUD harness plugged into the dimmer slot which it will plug into the back but will not plug into the dimmer switch. it's too wide. HUD harness has 11 wires and the dimmer harness has 7. when I put the switches from my original IPC to the replacement 97 IPC I noticed this and just used my harness from my original defective IPC and made the hook ups and tested it and everything was good. never thought much of it till I posted my small problem here. kinda makes you wonder more about buying used stuff as I go by "buyer beware". I'm glad I got a reply from you which started me to find out what the problem was. got the silver bezels glued on and gonna install it today. btw this swap was not nearly as hard as I thought it was. took almost as much time to find the socket I dropped to remove the IPC.

 

Color me confused.

If you have a 1997 C5 , and you bought a used 1998 IPC, why did you not just transfer the odometer PCB module from your 1997 IPC to the new/used 1998 IPC?

 

Mileage is stored on the IPC main board. When his original IPC "took a dump" he went with the most viable option, a used replacement. CDW, if you want the mileage to reflect accurately, you need to find a dealer or speedo repair outfit to change the mileage on your replacement IPC/main board.
While there are a couple of outfits that can supposedly repair a bad main board, used IPCs on the parts forum or Ebay can be more affordable.
And +1 on the learned something new today. I can see where the 'parade mode' could be very beneficial. Have had many an occasion where running the headlights during daylight hours was either advisable or required, and it made reading any dash information difficult.

 

I know where the mileage is stored. Apparently you have inside knowledge here. My last recollection was the OP had DIC buttons that were not working, or working and settings getting stuck. Not that the whole IPC assembly went belly up.

 

you are correct. it's an eight leg eeprom. experience with hot air soldering would be a must. I've garage soldered small things forever but I don't feel good about taking on a main circuit board eeprom. there is a very good chance I would screw up both boards. "supposedly repair" is right on the money.when I started this project a little over a year ago I tried to educate myself to the fullest I could. some of the experts claim it's very seldom the DIC buttons when this happens. I had a list of about 8 places where some said they could fix it. the best I got from all of them was we don't fix those, and send the IPC to us and we'll see if we can fix it. as far as used is,I would hope there is some use left in them. 25 year electronic used parts makes me shiver. I just ran across a couple IPC's and took a chance and it worked out good. I still have the 105k 98 board for a spare. I should have hooked it up today when I finished this project but I was just glad the 97 replacement worked good. it's really an easy project. car will be in a will so the kids will have to read my notes on this swap. what I really wanted is have my original fixed. I know a couple tech people and I'll probably use mine as a winter project to see if I can fix it. I always thought if mine went south at 50k will a replacement do better. anyway thank you very much for the reply. I have a couple more tips but it's running a little long and its been a fascinating experience so far. btw i've had some very good replies from you redzg.

 

had a very knowledgeable source say it's very seldom the DIC buttons. the buttons are a very rugged part. most every post I read about said the fix was another IPC. first clue is the DIC buttons don't work then you can bet the IPC is hurt. thanks for the reply lucky, this problem is not going away soon and if you Google c5 IPC repair you can spend the rest of the night reading about others that had the same problem. this problem is just as popular as the harmonic balancer repair,ask me how I know.