instrument cluster died on a hard launch
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From: Orange Park, FL
instrument cluster died on a hard launch I was at a stoplight on my way home from work tonight when a BMW gave me a rev. Well, I put the BMW in it's place but when I looked at my instrument panel it was dead, then it came back on but the guages were reading crazy and all the lights came on and went off (like when you first turn the ignition on), then it went dead again, then came back on, then off, then on and everything went back to normal except that the trip meter had been reset, as if I had disconnected the battery or something. All of this happened in about 3-4 seconds. This has happened once before a good while back when I left the muffler shop after putting a new muffler on (had to try it out, ya know). When I got home I checked the battery connection and all the grounds in the engine bay and everything looked good, so I wrote it off as a fluke that maybe had something to do with the welding or something. It hasn't happened again until tonight. Tomorrow I'm going to pull the panel out and make sure the connection is good back there, but other than that I have no clue what would cause this. Any ideas?
One more note: I just happened to be logging while this happened, so I'll look over the log in the morning to see if anything looks funny.
One more note: I just happened to be logging while this happened, so I'll look over the log in the morning to see if anything looks funny.
Re: instrument cluster died on a hard launch The high RPMs may have pumped too much juice into the system and blown some fuses. I'd suggest checking all of the fuses to be on the save side. Make sure the battery connections are super tight, well relatively tight
Re: instrument cluster died on a hard launch The instrument panel just pushes onto the connector that it's plugged into. It's supposed to be a pretty tight fit, but it's possible it came loose.
Re: instrument cluster died on a hard launch Come to think of it, I think my gauges do the same... Ocassionally when I start the car, the tach and speedo will spike to max, go back down, then raise back up to normal. The odometer will reset itself too. Not sure that it is 
Re: instrument cluster died on a hard launch Shake your battery. My battery hold down broke on mine and on hard launches it would short out agaisnt the A/C can. When this would happen my gauges would do the same thing and sometimes the clock on the radio would reset also.
Re: instrument cluster died on a hard launch Just to put my point in a little better perspective, here's a picture of the male plug on the cluster, as well as the female plug behind it.
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Re: instrument cluster died on a hard launch I'm interested in this too. Usually when I start up my car in the morning (I haven't noticed a trend on if it's cold or warm out) sometimes It'll take a few minutes for my clock and radio to decide it wants to turn on.
Thanks SMOKINV8
Thanks SMOKINV8
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From: Orange Park, FL
Re: instrument cluster died on a hard launch
Shake your battery. My battery hold down broke on mine and on hard launches it would short out agaisnt the A/C can. When this would happen my gauges would do the same thing and sometimes the clock on the radio would reset also.
Re: instrument cluster died on a hard launch
Shake your battery. My battery hold down broke on mine and on hard launches it would short out agaisnt the A/C can. When this would happen my gauges would do the same thing and sometimes the clock on the radio would reset also.
the front clip, near the headlight.
almost every other person i have talked to has said the same thing has happened to thier car...
I am going to just get a optima, and weld up a metal battery cage.
Ryan.
