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Hey guys, My odometer has been doing the standard not displaying digits for a while. This normally comes back when the car gets warm after an hour or so and all is good. As a side note the cruise control is somehow linked to this as it also stops working when there are no digits. Anyway, today once the car warmed up the digits came back and went mental. It flashed through all kinds of nonsense and a buzzer came on and off a few times. It's now come on solid and it's displaying 0 miles for the tripometer and also 0 miles on the odometer. As if it's a brand new car.... I don't want to lose the mileage reading as it will look sketchy in the history. Any ideas how to get it back and where can repair the digits disappearing thing? I've read mileage can be stored in the ECU but I'm on Apexi.
The common problem to your speedo is damage caused by capacitor leakage. You will need to remove the instrument cluster then remove and inspect the speedometer board for damaged components. How long has the "flashing" odometer problem been happening? Your specific problem is very unique so I believe it should be examined further. Thanks for sharing your observation on the cruise control function. That is a common symptom that your speedometer board is damaged and requires repair. Have you driven the car since the odometer reset?
There are a few threads that I'd like you to consider.
This thread identifies and help you repair the most common problem with the speedo board, leaked capacitors: just got done figuring out how to fix an FD odometer
That thread will step you through the removal of the instrument cluster, inspection, and repair processes. However, your problem appears to be more severe. So use this thread to remove the speedo board from the instrument cluster.
Once you take a look inside the circuit board, you could then determine if this is a project you'd like to tackle. Take plenty of pictures from various angles and don't be shy to get in close. Once posted to the Troubleshooting thread, I could offer more advice to the damage and potential repair of the board. I speculate that the odometer has permanently reset because of faulty components. The mileage previously recorded on your odometer may be lost. Don't be confused that the problem in your speedo is now fixed. The same or more problems will continue to plague the board until they are fixed (or replaced). The alternative is to replace the speedometer with a new one.
From an administrative perspective, verify what you may need to document an odometer reset with your local motor vehicle office (I don't know what the UK equivalent is called). I only know that an M.O.T is required for UK vehicles. Beyond that, I don't know.
Mine did this, I did not repair it myself as I didn't have time and needed to register my vehicle quickly with another state. What I learned is that there are only some places here in the US that can repair your cluster when this happens. DNA Speedometers in FL is one of them. Effectively they had to re-write the correct mileage onto the EEPROM because the capacitor leakage had corrupted the data in non-volatile memory. There were other artifacts as well that appeared in the display. As far as I know, unless you have the ability to re-write the correct mileage numbers into the right memory addresses on the EEPROM, there is no way you can fix this problem yourself, even if you are able to fix the capacitors as mentioned by Gen2n3.
Thanks for sharing your experience. You are correct: There is no way to edit the EEPROM yourself without the right equipment and know-how. The primary reason for this is to prevent odometer fraud.
Did DNA Speedometers fully repair your speedo? How long ago was that repair done? Are you still using that same speedo or did other problems manifest? When they modified the EEPROM, was there some form of attestation to the odometer reading?
Yes an affidavit was provided as attestation to the odometer mileage along with a recent title recording the last odometer reading. It was fully repaired last month. They also replaced the caps for me. I posted a review of the experience in the feedback forums. I've flashed eeproms before (never in a speedo, but firmware for computer hardware) there are "spider" like devices that make contact with the solder points on the board connecting the eeprom that allow you to write without desoldering the eeprom from the board.
The secret is knowing where the memory addresses are located which requires great experience in reverse engineering using tools. I could have done it in a few weeks (that I don't have!) with a few grand in software licenses and hardware, they did it in about an hour. That's what you're paying for there.
did you ever figure this out? I bought a car with a dead display, only mileage known is from Carfax. after I replaced the damaged capacitors my odometer now reads zero.
I don't mind sending it out to get uploaded with the correct mileage, or perhaps a signal generator could be used to drive the speedo at Max speed until that mileage is reached.
just seeing if anyone found a fix, or is the mileage truly lost?
did you ever figure this out? I bought a car with a dead display, only mileage known is from Carfax. after I replaced the damaged capacitors my odometer now reads zero.
I don't mind sending it out to get uploaded with the correct mileage, or perhaps a signal generator could be used to drive the speedo at Max speed until that mileage is reached.
just seeing if anyone found a fix, or is the mileage truly lost?
I don't have the answer to your question, but regarding the signal generator idea, if it can be made to work it will still be a time consuming process. Say you need to add 50K miles to your ODO - at a simulated 160 MPH, it would take 312.5 hours to click off that many miles.
Idk if you fixed this but I can program the miles back and repair your cluster for anyone that finds this.
for my situation, i ended up getting the mileage programmed in close to what it was before, so no worries there. hope it stays, still not sure how the chip could loose that data. it obviously was wiped out for some reason or another.
02-23-20, 01:17 PM
