Speedo needle freakout?

[jrayelliott90]

Recently my speedometer needle has been acting up. There seems to be no pattern other than its just cold here. The needle doesn't move at first the violently jumps from 0 to current speed back to just sitting on zero. It repeats this process in no particular order for a little while then works just fine. Sometimes it doesn't malfunction at all other times it does. What could be the issue?

 

[jrayelliott90]

On a side note all my other gauges have had no issues.

 

[joegr]

It sounds like it's probably an internal fault with the cluster. The servo for the speedometer may be failing, it might be a failing solder joint, or a cracked trace on the cluster main PCB.

 

[jrayelliott90]

You think it could just be from the cold? It's been getting below zero on average again.

 

[joegr]

You think it could just be from the cold? It's been getting below zero on average again.

Not just from the cold. You have a fault. It was designed to work to lower temperatures than that. It is possible (and not unusual) that the fault you have is triggered or made worse by the cold. If so, I would guess that eventually it will fail at warmer temperatures too.

 

[jrayelliott90]

Ill do some searching. Maybe it's a cheap fix or I'll get a whole unit from the parts yard near here.

 

[G-RELL]

you can get the cluster anywhere... but will need to be married to you computer at the dealer.

 

[joegr]

you can get the cluster anywhere... but will need to be married to you computer at the dealer.

Yes, and be sure to take all of your keys with you (if you want them all to still work). Also, you will need at least two keys. If you only have one, they'll have to cut another one to be able to complete the marrying procedure.

 

[jrayelliott90]

Yey! I love dealing with those tards lol.

 

[jrand]

alternatively, you can save hundreds by leaving it as-is and using an 'elm-327' (ebay/amazon) plugged into the obd-ii port combined with a droid-enabled device and an app called 'torque' you can use this as a speedometer among many other things. you can probably do this for under $50 if you buy an old phone off ebay (~$20), get the elm-327 from ebay ($15), and the full version of the torque app ($5 last i checked) and a suction mount for the phone ($10).

if you dont know how to use a smartphone, any kid btwn 10yrs and 40yrs should be able to figure this out for you