MamaBear2015

This car was having problems for over a year, with the tach and speedometer bouncing, when it got too warm behind the dash. Then this spring, I asked my mechanic to replace some bulbs in the cluster. One of their guys was carrying the cluster back to me, when it slipped out of his hand and fell on the concrete floor. They put it back in, but it had a problem with one of the gauges after that. The fuel gauge was sticking at certain points.

So they ordered one used, from Canada and put it in. But since then, it's been developing a bounce in the tach, and the speedometer has been at zero about half the time. Fortunately, we have a GPS on the dash and that provides an accurate speed. But Even WORSE, sometimes this cluster reads WRONG. Like it said I was doing 57 one time on a 75 MPH toll road, and I was doing 80!

The mechanic checked cables and connectors and isn't finding the source, so he called a guy who's an expert and was told that these cars start having cluster problems, after about 125k miles, and the used cluster that they put in, could have been that old too.

So now I don't know WHAT to do.

Does any off shore source sell brand new clusters for these cars? Not too expensively?

BrotatoChip

I don't want to flat out call him a liar but I have personally never heard of anything like this and I have now owned four different 7th generation Civics. My current daily has 285k miles and the cluster works perfectly.

Does everything else in the cluster work besides the bouncing tach and wrong speedometer?

MamaBear2015

He's the best, most honest mechanic we've ever found, so let's assume that no one may know.

Yes, the fuel gauge and temp gauge are fine. In fact they were with the original one too. But with the original, the speedometer bounced the most, when hot, and the tach sometimes, when also hot.

With this replacement, the speedometer is out half the time, and inaccurate sometimes.

And my mechanic says that he also tried some kind of contact goop, that's supposed to help the contacts of the connectors, but it hasnt worked.

BrotatoChip

Do you have a scanner you could use to read live data from the ECU? Would like to know if the ECU agrees with the speedo/tach when they're acting funny.

NDNV

Check out this thread as it may be relevant to your issue: https://www.civicforums.com/forums/3...ch-speedo.html

MamaBear2015

I don't have one, but my mechanic does. It's just that they'd have to drive it around for awhile, to observe when it does that, while monitoring the scanner? Is that a safety issue?

BrotatoChip

I would run the cluster diagnostics first that NDNV linked.

MamaBear2015

Thanks! Printing it out and will do! The only thing I don't know, is that this is happening at random, and the diagnostic may not catch it?

Slumpertcivic

MamaBear2015

This doesn't look good. I turn the ignition on sometimes, before even driving, and the tach starts bouncing.

Do they sell new clusters for this car?

If so, is it hard to spec them specifically?