1998 XJR. The information display in the center of my dash displays only the odometer setting. Normally when you press the button on the end of the turn signal stalk, you can rotate among different information. My preference is miles to empty.

When I press the button nothing happens. It stays on the odometer reading.

I reset the system twice by removing the negative battery cable and touching it to the positive for 15-20 seconds, figuring that would fix it. Nope.

Do those buttons go bad? It’s not like it sees much use. I do have another turn signal stalk assembly. Maybe I’ll end up plugging it in to see if it works.

Any suggestions before I dig deeper? Thank you!

 

Possibly the wires at the base of the stalk have broken off. Take the column cover off and look underneath the base of the stalk to see if a wire has come off. It’s not uncommon.

 

The multi-fuction switch wires are soldered to a terminal board and they become DISCONNECTED with headlamp MAIN/DIP and TURN SIGNAL operations.
Wire fatigue can break the solder joints.

 

This kind of malfunction always makes me wonder how it could have designed and
constructed such that this would not happen. As long as I have been working with
electro-mechanical devices, i have seen this situation repeatedly and it occurs to me
that a simple bypass wire would have prevented the situation in most cases. Of
course, it would have also raised the building and material cost.

 

Thanks Bob! I had no idea! 😂😂

 

This sounds very likely. I’ll dig into it when I get a chance. Thanks for the advice!