Greetings
I have a 1989 260E which has just completed 260,000 kilometres.
However, a few weeks ago, the odometer and trip meter stopped operating.
My mechanic says the odometer will have to be taken out and sent away for repair - which in Mercedes speak sounds expensive!
Does anyone have any advice here? Is there a simple fix?
Thanks in advance
Peter
Call a local speedometer shop.
For instance:
IF the cluster and speedo design is the same as my 200E, then it may be a simple fix.
Without disassembling the cluster, look at the odometer, if it looks like it's skewed, the right hand side lower than the left hand side, then it has just jumped gears. All it needs (hah!) is that you take out the instrument cluster, remove the speedometer module and push the spindle back in, and it should engage the gears and work well again.
IMHO, it was a bad design, but it's usually due to the trip meter getting sticky, and if you press the reset button, all the number may not line up properly at "0000", if so, it will jam and cause pressure to build up on the drive spindle, which then derails and thereby dislodging itself. Somebody should have put a friction clutch on the trip meter drive gear.
While it's out, I would clean and lube the odometer and trip meter gears as well.
Getting the cluster out:
Some additional tips in this Forum Thread:
Yup.
Nearly if not all German postwar cars use the same VDO mechanism which has as a weakness one gear that ALWAYS (eventually) fails.
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