Dash Lights & Rear Wiper & Service Engine Soon

[PirateDan]

I’ve got a ’98 Voyager, several months ago my wife turn on the van after coming out of the grocery store and none of the dash lights or gauges were working, otherwise the van worked fine. On her way home, suddenly all the lights and gauges came back to life. Soon after we had the “clock spring” recall fix. Now, this week I was driving the van and same thing happened. I came out of a store turned on the van and the lights and gauges were off. I also noticed that the console controls (for the heat and rear wiper) were off. I noticed this because my rear wiper has been intermittently wiping on it’s own for months (especially after it has been raining) and it finally stopped. In the past, I have noticed that a bump in the road would also trigger the wipers and other bump (or a good whack to the side of the console) would trigger the wipers off. So I put 1 and 1 together and came up with 3 – I whacked the side of the console and all my lights and gauges came back on. But after doing that I now have the “service engine soon” light turned on steady. My questions:
1. Do I have a short in my console?
2. Is the rear wiper related to this short or just coincidence?
3. Do I really need to have my engine serviced or is this just a result of my unorthodox method of getting my lights and gauges back on?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.