Problem going on with my car. How do I fix this?

Check all your grounds—engine to frame—frame to battery. Just a guess. Are there any other things that don’t work or act funny. (Alarms, horns, radio or windshield wipers)

Also make sure your battery is properly held in place.

Well the cluster is out on the dash so none of my gauges work. But I will check te grounds.

That maybe your problem, check in with the local car electrical / dealer.

Does the lights out include your rear lights?

When the theft system light on the dash comes on the daytime running lights come on but no the tail lights do not come on.

Blown fuse for tail lights maybe. But I’m inclined to think something else is going on. Try the fuse first but intermittent electronic phenomenon is possible including loose dashboard cluster.

You would think that if GM had any decency at all then all of the 2000 Cavaliers’ theft systems for those cars still on the road would have disabled automatically by now. Who’s going to steal a 2000 Chevy Cavalier, after all?

With the symptoms you’ve described, I’d be looking for a short in a line, rather than a blown fuse or loose wires. I’m thinking that a wire involved in the theft system has worn off the insulation so that the wire is shorting against a part of the frame after the jostle in the ride. That is causing the other problems with the headlamps, etc.

I’m wondering if the short term fix might be to find the fuse for the theft deterrent system and pull that deliberately to see if that avoids the problem of that system activating when you don’t want it to. And to get back to my lead sentence, when do you seriously want that active, anyway?

Around that era, many carmakers had sub-par electrical systems anyways, and after a decade I can’t imagine that anything between ‘97—‘02 doesn’t have at least one electrical gremlin. I would almost bet that it’s a wire/cable issue, and those are no fun to trace down.

@WasCy My ‘85 Corolla also lacks any anti-theft stuff. It’s old, dented, underpowered, and the most valuable thing in it is the roll of duct tape I keep in the center console to re-seal the leaky sunroof as needed.