Solved the dodgy speedo on Peugeot 306 1998/S

'ow much!..365 quid for something of the equivalent sophistication and build quality that no doubt the Chinese could knock up and provide a reasonable profit margin for a retailer in this country to sell for under £30.

supply and demand

i had this argument with a large ford dealership in birmingham to justify thier price they showed me what they paid for it , just 15% mark up , when i looked up the supplier later low and behold they were owned by the same group , on further investigation the parts i needed had come through 6 different companies all owned by the same group

Or more than likely got you over a barrel!

I've been in the domestic electronics service industry for more decade's and I care to remember, and have to confess that it's been a bit of an eye opener to see the way things have evolved over the years.

A classic example was the other week when a guy brought me a PC board to see if I could do anything with it, apparently it was part of a pub glass washing-machine, he said that the manufacturers didn't do a repair service and would only supply a complete new panel at £400 plus Vat, on examination I guess that the component count wouldn't have amounted to much more than £25 even at retail prices.

After blanket soldering a plethora of dry-joints and cleaning some relay contacts I charged him 30 quid (after he had confirmed that it was working OK) as you can imagine the chap was as they say 'over the moon'!

I'd try really carefully dissasembling, and lubricating the speedo motor.

Due to the way stepper motors work, they are fed two alternating voltages, and the delay between them sets the direction of rotation. Physically the voltages run electromagnets, which repel or attract a magnet from them. In sequence it's pulled towards one electromagnet then the other. If one of these phases is missing, then it won't really go anywhere, unless it's already moving.

Another perhaps more likely alternative is simple wear, or contamination

- if a bit of grit has got into the works it'd do pretty much this.

We do live in something of a throw away culture these days. (Well most do, I prefer not to).

As someone aptly said some years ago. "We live in an effluent society" Mike.

Id still check the wiring in case but it does sound like binding on the shaft to me, worth a stripdown and sand a pencil tip with very fine paper to make a nice dry lube for any bits you can get it into.

The problem started off (at the start of some cold weather) as it sticking and never going backwards (so 0-30mph-0mph showed 30mph, another 0-30-0mph showed 60mph etc.) After a while, when the car had warmed up it started going backwards again (although never back lower than 100mph!). At this point turning the ignition off would reset it (via a juddering movement) back to 0. Ignition back on again would be fine (until left for a period/cold etc).

After taking a look/fiddle with the instrument panel it stopped doing the warmup and return thing, and just stuck. But even then, it would wiggle a bit sometimes, but never more than a few degrees, and always still pointing right down over the distance counter.

I like that one.