2000 Mercury Cougar weird electrical issues

It sounds like the cluster has a bad solder on the circuit board, you can try resoldering the spots where the harness plugs in. Or change the cluster.

No. I don't think it is that. Everything that I mentioned is all connected to the same problem. They all started the same time and they are all electrical related. The most common factor about them is that they are all illuminated or lit in someway (anti-theft light, doam light, reading lamps, sun visor mirror light, digital clock, digital odometer. Etc.) They are not all located in the cluster. It is like when I turn the key off the car loses all of it's electrical powers except for the power seat and power doorlocks. Then if I turn the key over but don't start the car, it regains it's power but it is resetting everything (clock is behind on time, radio resets settings) Except my interior lights still won't work most of the time even if the car is started. But if the interior lights ARE working, then when I turn the car off and restart it the gauges all stay normal.. Confusing, huh? I hate electrical problems.

Okay, so it's definitely not the cluster. It is something more major than this. Ford wants $100 just to put it on a computer and run a test. If they don't find anything then I'm out money I don't even have to begin with. You have any other ideas what it might be? Also, now my anti-theft light is staying on when I take the key out but it is really dim. So instead of it blinking like it is supposed to, or not doing anything like it has been for that past 2 weeks, it is now doing something different. Also, my sound system quit working now. Def. Something getting worse. I need to find the problem before it kills power to something that runs the car.

UPDATE: I recently rechecked all fuses and when re-inserting them I pushed a little extra hard to ensure that they are making contact and now all the problems have gone away for the moment. Could it have been as simple as a lose fuse?

Could be a loose wire in back of the fuse box.

Battery is brand new. Little red light (anti-theft light) was connected with everything else that had issues. As I already posted, I wiggled around all of the fuses and wires and the issues have went away. Still working fine now.

Thanks though.