About every six months or so I find when starting up my 2005 X Type 3.0 L after it has been previously driven that day the gauges and speedometer don't work. I've tried shutting the car off and then restarting it but still have the problem. I usually end up having to drive the car a short distance in that condition. Then after it sits for a few hours the problem disappears and everything works fine. Thank goodness it happens rarely. But I worry about the day it happens and won't start working again.
Mentioned this to my dealer thinking there might be some kind of diagnostic or service bulletin on this and the response I got was "it's just one of those things that happens sometimes and you just have to live with it, we can't do anything about it" Hmmmm. Really. Anyone else ever had this problem, and if so, is there a solution?

 

Seems like your gauge cluster may be going out or not getting enough voltage. The gauges and abs system operate on the highest voltage so if your battery starts to die, you will first lose abs, then the cluster. It may just be a weird electrical gremlin with such an old car. Sometimes my gauges get an obvious surge and die for a couple of seconds, but I'm sure this is due to a small skip from my alternator.

 

I had a problem some time back with speedo failing and other things not working including cruise control. Eventually it was traced to a bad earth connection on a relay. In the fuse/relay box under the bonnet/hood against the right wing looking from the front, there are several relays in a row, on mine it was the third from the back. On mine there is a space where there is second one is in some cases. From the earth pin we just hard wired to a nearby bolt. Cured the problem...

 

This just happened to my wife. Everything was working on Wednesday when I used the car, but she took it today and called to let me know that none of the gauges are working. Will check the fuses and battery first. Will look at the Earth connection that RalphW mentioned, but honestly, I have no idea what that means. Maybe when I look it'll be obvious. I didn't ask her about cruise control, but I will see if that is working.

 

It was my local auto electricial who found the fault for me after a long search. The diagnostics unfortunately don't pin point it, so it is dificult to find. With the fuse box open while the engine is running with the fault, the relay that has the earth fault buzzes and even if you cannot hear it, it can be felt vibrating.