The tachometer on my 2006 Estate Wagon has never worked since I've bought it.I I got a replacement instrument panel from a salvage yard, but it didn't work in y car and I was told that I risked screwing up the car's programming and preventing the engine from being started. The Individual instruments are all connected to a printed circuit board, with each instrument having i t's own operating motor. Has anyone run into this issue and found a way to address it, or do I have to bring the car to a dealer and have them do the work ($$$)? I can probably live without a tach, but it would be nice to have it working.

Thanks.

 

You can replace the instrument cluster (at dealer & pay $$$$$ to program it). The alternate is you need the instrument cluster, ECM&GEM bundled unit and the KEY from the same donor car. This is how you can replace it without having to program everything.

 

 

Max224, the problem you describe can be caused by 2 issues that I can think of. One is fixable, the other is not. This is where having good eyesight and a good magnifying glass is going to possibly save you some money. The first step is to simply remove the instrument cluster and to have it on a work bench. This is where luck will need to be on your side and for you to have a lot of patience. What you are going to do is using the magnifying glass (as needed), you need to look at each silver dot on the instrument cluster (yes, all 1,000+ of them, exaggeration, but you will feel like it it). What you are looking for is what will appear to be either a crack or a black line in the middle of the silver (solder) part of where a wire attaches to the circuit board. As a general rule, the most likely place is where the plug attaches to the instrument cluster. After that, it is a matter of just looking. If you find one that has the crack/black ring, it will need to be repaired and don't stop there, keep looking. Normally where you find one, you will find a few.

As for repairing, this is where patience and a steady hand is going to be vital. You will need to resolder that joint. the big things are not applying heat for too long that may damage an electronic chip/board and also not letting the soldering iron touch another nearby pad and causing the solder to form a bridge to something nearby (this is effectively wiring those 2 points together and what it will cause, hard to say, but I can tell you that it won't be good, so, take it slow and easy). If you need me to give any more helpful hints, let me know.

If you don't find any broken solder joints, then odds are you have a failed instrument cluster. The ECU feeds the instrument cluster the data via the CAN Bus to make the tach work. So, there is no single wire that drives the tach. it is all data that the instrument cluster grabs and then makes the appropriate dial move.

 

 

Thanks to everyone for their helpful advice. The instrument cluster is now back in the car, since I need to be able to drive it. When I had it out, the tachometer needle appeared to be jammed and difficult to move. I chalked that up to a defective stepper motor which I have no idea where to purchase let alone how to replace. My soldering skills and eyesight leave a lot to be desired and, as tempting (and satisfying) as repairing it myself might be, there is a real potential for making the problem worse. There are numerous services out there that purport to be able to work on these clusters with widely varying prices. Has anyone had occasion to use one of them and provide a recommendation?

Thanks again for all of your suggestions and remedies.

 

As the stepper motor is mechanical, they can wear and fail.
My rev counter is noisy, but working.
I have bought a used cluster to change the stepper motor over, when I does go wrong.
All the stepper motors in the cluster appear to all be the same part.

Paul.