The guages in my 98 Nissan Frontier have been whacko lately. All of the guages are involved..temp, gas, mileage, SPEEDOMETER, (which is the one that bugs me the most), and the rpm. This is a sporadic thing..within a days errands, I may start off with them working, I turn the truck off, do an errand, start the truck up again and some or all are not working.
This has been going on for a month or more. The other day my truck failed to start..just the rapid tick, tick, ticking sound. All of the guages were also not working..I had been thinking lately that I was due for a new battery as the battery was an original? (Nissan battery)..I had bought the truck when it was 4 years old and in my experience, IF the original battery had gone bad, most garages don't replace with a Nissan battery, not even Nissan garages..(I've owned previous Nissans.)
Back to the day the truck wouldn't start..my thought at that time was that this must be more than a bad battery as with previous battery failures, the truck wouldn't start but the guages wern't affected.
I decided to call AAA and have the truck taken to a garage near to my home which wasn't a Nissan garage but they do specialize in Japanese vehicles. I explained the guage situation to them when I called.
They called me back that morning and said it needed a new battery and they thought that was probably the cause of the guage problem. Later that afternoon I went to pick up the truck and they said the guages were working. On the way home they were ok and I thought they had solved the problem. I made a stop on the way home and when I got back into the truck..they were ALL off again. They've been off and on since.
The next morning I went back to the garage and told them the problem had not been solved. They said the next thing to do would be to get into the electrical system which was not an easy thing and which means to me that it would be EXPENSIVE!
A neighbor had told me that it might be a bad ground wire, which I asked them about, and they said checking that would also mean getting into the electrical system.
My question to you is are there any easy, (less expensive), reasons that might be causing this problem and/or would driving with these guages only working sporadically mean that there is major trouble brewing somewhere and there might be another breakdown coming. I have my Golden Retriever with me most of the time and I don't want to be breaking down on some highway with her in the truck!
Sorry for the long post but I wanted to get the whole story to you.
If anyone should want to reply to me in e-mail rather than in this group...put an N between mar and max.
Thank You..Margaret