I also have the tachometer going funny on my 2004 X-type.
According to the previous owner he always used the ETM to reset the tacho.
But since i own the car i never got into ETM!
I am sure i am using the right procedure, i checked that multiple times: hold trip knob on stalk, turn ignition into position two and wait..... nothing happens.
Is this a common thing the ETM mode can become unavailable all of a sudden?

 

RedXJ40, you are close on the procedure, but not quite. Press and hold the TRIP button, start the car. Keep holding the TRIP button. As the car catches, count "1 thousand 1 1 thousand 2" and then release the TRIP button. that should put you into the test mode. It will not fall into test mode on itself if you are still holding the button. You have like a 3 second window to release the TRIP button in (2 to 5 seconds after the instrument cluster gets power).

When you say you have a tach going funny on you, what do you mean by that? It is a known issue with the X-Types that the main connector will get broken solder joints on the instrument cluster board. So, you would remove the instrument cluster and the big connector, if you look where it connects to the circuit card, you can see some solder joints there and if you see a black ring (going to be very thin in most cases), that is your broken solder joint. Re-melt the solder and that should fix your issue. That should prevent you from having to reset the tach all the time.

 

Thank you for your extensive reply.
I tried holding the trip knob and releasing it a few secs after the car started, but that also did not help.
Very strange.
I did find however someone with the same problem.
With his car it also was not working anymore all of a sudden, he did the procedure numerous times before so he did know what he was doing.

 

I don't know exactly why, but it started to work again.
I did not change anything in the way you supposed to do it: hold trip knob on stalk, put key on position 2, wait for test to appear in display.
I did disconnect the battery recently because of this issue, but directly after that it was still not working... but now it is... oh well...