Random loss of speedometer and rev counter

Jul 08, 2006 3 Replies

My 2003 Focus (manual 1.6) has recently developed a problem whereby randomly the speedometer, rev counter and temperature indicator will all go to zero, the odometer will blank out, and the engine management light comes on. A while later, they all come back on and the engine light goes out.


From a search on here I saw lots of posts about a "Vehicle Speed

Sensor" but this only seemed to be people saying their speedometer went to zero; if the other dials are being lost too, does that still indicate the speed sensor or could it be something else?


I took it to a garage but they couldn't figure out what the problem was ... apparently they plugged their computer in and it didn't show any fault codes.


Any ideas?

you are correct, if it was the speed sensor all the other stuff would not quit with it. It sounds as if you simply have a bad connection. It likely will not be simple to find though.

when they fail do they fail at the same time? If so i would say you have an intermittent connection in you gauge cluster. Bad solder connections most likely

Thanks -- it seems that was exactly the case. After a couple of failed attempts to repair the instrument cluster, the garage gave up and replaced it with a new one, and since then I've had no problems.

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