I've got a 1999 Mercury Villager. It has a digital dashboard. Anyway, every once in a while it will stop working. The speedometer just reads 0 and the odometer won't change. The tach and other things on the dash will work fine. It doesn't do it all the time.





Does anyone know what might be the cause?

 

The basics are the same, electronic gizmo, electric connections, and of course the age.


I was working on a MGM with the digital dash, which sometimes did not lid up at all.


I took the instrument cluster out, disconnected the multi-function plug in the rear (there were 3, 1 is for the main info center), cleaned the contacts, bend the plastic tabs carefully just a bit, assembled everything back together, and: voila! Works fine so far (about 9 months now).


Once something goes wrong with the electronics, you are better of buying a new cluster, unless you have one who can repair it fairly priced. However, as stated before, age and wear is a major issues to electronics, so you might want to consider this and give it a try. I wont cost you anything.


Greetings!