Rover 214 Speedometer

Feb 23, 2005 4 Replies

I have a curious problem with the speedometer of my Rover 214 (1994 L Reg). When I go above roughly 70-75 miles per house. The speedometer shoots round to 120-130mph it then bounces around here until my speed drops below about 65-70 and then all is normal again.



What is causing this?



The message from snipped-for-privacy@tesco.net contains these words:

That's some fancy appartment you got there!

If it's a mechanical speedo then it's likely the cable's wearing out.

That, or it's bouncing up and down trying to tell you there's a speed camera round the corner.

I had exactly the same problem - in a Triumph, and it continued after replacing the cable. Best I could work out was that inside the speedo head, there was wear in the mechanism, which caused whatever drove the needle to wobble and give erratic results, and the only option was replacing the speedo head.

Oddly, it only manifested itself in cold weather.

Cheers,

This always used to be attributed to oil in the speedo head - the cable is connected to a magnet which turns as the car moves. around the magnet is a metal cup which is connected to the needle. The spinning magnet drags the cup around with it but because there is a spring that tries to make the needle return to the zero position it will only go so far before it 'slips' and holds a steady position. I guess any oil between the magnet and cup would give erratic operation, and may be worse when cold because the oil would be more viscous

Peter

Bingo - you just described what I was trying to get my head around. Made a god-awful noise when it did so too.

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