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Make sure that all your fuses make good contact and are good. Also try disconnecting the Battery for 10 minutes or so. If you have a code reader than first retrieve any codes stored in memory.
It doesn't hurt to try and costs you nothing.
Wow this is so awesome, I just removed my battery head and leave it for 10mins as you said. Immediately I put them back and start the car my speeder clock started working perfectly fine again. Thanks so much you just saved me hundreds of dollars
This video explains the 3 simultaneous symptoms others have had and shows the process of how it’s fixed. Hope this helps everyone who may run into this issue.
3 issues are:
1. 1. speedometer not moving
2. 2. odometer digital display is blank
3. 3. shifting is erratic while trying to accelerate
Old post. The chipping clear coat makes the car extremely unattractive. But there is a fix for it, repair the damaged clearcoat and apply new clearcoat! You'll like looking at the car again. Clearcoat gets thin on the surfaces hit by the sun. So the hood, the roof and the trunk.
Early winter last year, my speedometer and odometer started to not work properly. At first it was just blips where the odometer would blank out and the speedometer would drop to 0 while in motion.
Took it to a shop and they replaced the speed sensor, as the CEL indicated. A day later, same issue occured. Took the car back, they took out the speed sensor, put in the old one, and poked around with the wiring. Couldnt find issue. They believe the issue was either wiring, or possibly a bad cluster. Maybe a cold solder or something in the cluster.
I dealt with it for a few months since the issue was very intermittent. Then suddenly for another few months, the issue seemed to no longer occur... until last week. Speedometer/odometer is completely dead. In addition, last week I had difficulty shifting out of first gear. It just sat in first til I let off the gas a few times and it shifted. Hasnt happened since.
Spoke with a mechanic friend and he volunteered that it could be the ECU as well, he has replaced several ECUs in these cars.
Has anyone ran in to this? This car is not pretty anymore-- the paint is failing on the hood and trunk and roof. Its just not worth more than $1500. Therefore I dont want to spend $300+ diagnosing electrical issues. Found an ECU for $50 on Ebay.. I know its a gamble but I'm hoping that others have seen this to be a common issue and there's at least a decent chance its the ECU.
For anyone in the future dealing with similar issues: Triple check your 7.5A dome fuse and/or corresponding power feeds to the cluster. The vehicle speed sensor signal goes through the instrument cluster first, which does some signal processing, and then passes it along to other modules. Most of the circuits in the cluster are served off the 10A "gauge" fuse. The odometer/speedometer portion is not; It is served off the dome fuse (because the dome fuse is a constant power feed, whereas the gauge fuse is only powered with key in ignition position.) If your odometer display is completely blank, as in, you can't even read the mileage, the odometer is probably not receiving power. If it doesn't have power, it can't clean up the speed signal and pass it to other modules, which is why the ECU sets a P0500 code; The ECU can't see the speed signal. Now, if the fuse is good, pop the cluster out and check those power feeds. Short of a defective cluster/odometer, missing power feeds is the only reason I can think of that would cause a completely blank odometer.
In my case, my friend had a flaky fuse. Would kind of work in cold weather, but once engine (or the weather) warms up, it drops out.
Jared,
I hadn't worked on my RPM motor, and if you do, get the board number and pass it along here. I would like to get the caps for that board, too.
I just worked on my speedo which was showing +15mph at idle. Before it had this problem, the speedo and rpm needles were stuck occasionally, and I banged on the dash until they popped up and started working. I checked the RPM and speed on my OBD meter; the car was going the right speed and the tach was accurate, too. So, I knew that my VSS (vehicle speed sensor) was working properly. Also, these clusters are quite robust, except for these motors.
I took out my speedo motor and board from the cluster, and noticed some type of non-viscous fluid, maybe resin on the board right below a capacitor. I did searches and found that these speedo boards, 257695-025, had capacitors that leaked or just went bad. Also where I saw the slight liquid was underneath a capacitor that had, apparently, overheated because I couldn't read the specs on the side of the cap and the cap was discolored from navy blue to almost black.
I bought 3 new capacitors (see order receipt, below), took off the old ones and soldered new caps on. I had a spare, working motor which I swapped out and use in my current cluster. The speedo motor I repaired is a spare, but I'm not sure if I was successful in repairing it. I'll know when I install this fixed motor in the cluster at another time.
Look at this link, above. It shows what caps go where; two 22uF caps are the same, 2 x 22uF and 1 x 6.8uF. The person in this link removed the motor, and that may be the best way to access the cap closest to the motor. I kept the motor on the board, but it was tricky in removing and adding the new one.
I bought the Panasonic caps with 1000 hrs at optimal conditions. Also, the 6.8uF cap is rated at 35V, which isn't a problem. The best electrolytic caps for these boards are the ones made in Japan by Nichicon which some online electronic stores showed they were avaiable. I don't know these stores, and I would like to purchase the Nichicon because of the perceived quality and rated for 2000 hrs, but I'm worried about counterfeit parts. So, I went for the sure thing.
I purchased the caps from DigiKey.
If you get fingerprints on the cluster black part, you can use some putty stuff for watches, Rodico, made by Bergeon, 6033-1. It's made for watches to remove fingerprint smudges on the watch face dial and back. It works on the face dials of the cluster, too. Just pull off a pinch and roll over the cluster or pat on it to remove fingerprints and smudges.
Hopefully, this helps. Be sure to NOT bend the speedo spring, but it can be readjusted if you do a little accidental bending. If you question your soldering skills, then find a person whom you can trust to do it correctly. It's worth paying a little extra to get it right the first time.
Best,
Byron
These two images show the new caps soldered into place. I bought two sets of caps, one for this motor and the second cap set for the current motor in my cluster when it goes bad.
Last edited by bc1_2002; Oct 16, 2025 at 09:57 AM.
Reason: clarification
Amazing
