hondacivic25

So I bought a used 2002 honda civic about 3 weeks ago because I was in a bind and needed a car asap. It has dash issues and the mechanics I have taken it to cant seem to figure out whats causing it. Heres the situation. The previous owner had the AC totally redone because her AC randomly quite working. Ever since then the dash has also quit working..but not entirely..which is the weird part. The dash (speedometer, mileage, gas ETC) works sporadically. One guy who looked at it said the AC job was done really poorly, and that it could be a bad motherboard. The car makes horrible grinding sounds and died on me yesterday so I took it in again. Guy says it needs a new AC compressor. He also claims the alternator is fine. So my question is, what could cause the dash to only work sometimes? Could this be linked to the crappy AC job?

ezone

If SOME of the gauges do strange things, the first thing to check is if someone did not get all of the alternator bolts tight.

Loose alternator mounting bolts can and will ruin the PCM.

emich

after you check all connections and bolts run self diagnostic on the cluster: With the car off and the keys in the ignition, 1. Push and hold the trip-reset button 2. Turn the lighting switch on 3. Turn the ignition switch on within 5 seconds 4. Turn the lighting switch off, then on, then off again. 5. Within 5 seconds, release the trip/reset button, then push and release it 4 times repeatedly. This will run a self-contained diagnostic procedure that will sweep all the gauges from stop to stop. They should stop at 0 at the end of the cycle. To repeat, simply press the rest button again. It will stay in this mode until you turn off the ignition. This procedure is very useful for checking for burnt bulbs (as all bulbs flash in a steady rythym) and checking needle operation, as all needles slowly sweep through their full arcs

hondacivic25

So, dumb question, but if the bulbs are burnt out wouldnt they not work at all? The lights do randomly come on occasionally. I will give this a try though thank you

ezone

Of course not.



The self test is to check the operation of the cluster, gauges and (most of the) warning lights. If everything lights up and works during the test, the cluster is probably OK at that time. If you get fault messages, those need dealt with.

Most of the gauges and lights are controlled through a data bus to the engine computer, instead of controlled directly from sensors and whatnot. Therefore if the PCM gets damaged electronically, you can have gauges that don't operate correctly.

HTH