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Imagine the sun is shining, you’re driving your car and picking up speed. Suddenly, you look at the dashboard to check your speed.
The speedometer is showing perfect numbers, but your odometer is stuck. Maybe you need to know how many miles you have been driving, but that’s not possible anymore due to your broken odometer.
It’s not an uncommon incident. In fact, thousands of car owners have issued complaints that their speedometer works just fine, but the odometer has stopped working.
In this article, I will show you some simple steps for fixing your digital odometer. Furthermore, I will include some bonus tips in the end.
Burning Question the Odometer and Speedometer are same?
The odometer and speedometer of a car look like a single unit. But they have done different works. The speedometer shows speeds, how fast-moving the vehicles are like a meter reading (80Km/h), and the odometer shows a reading of (1000 km) for the distance traveled by the car so far.
Problems in a Digital Odometer
Speedometers are not exact, but they are sufficiently precise. And to make sure you’re staring at your odometer and it’s not spinning right now. In reality, it doesn’t happen with new vehicles.
Typically, once the car reaches the 200,000-mile mark, owners face this sort of problem. There’s no guarantee that the new car won’t have this problem.
The explanation that the odometer keeps failing is because the odometer is turning these gears. After all, these gears get weak and they are all made of plastic and the teeth fall off and so the odometer is spinning nothing.
Fixing Digital Odometer Not Working Step by Step
While driving, looking at a not-working odometer would be very odd. It may not hamper the performance of your car but it will give you an uneasy feeling. Most car owners, after running their cars for a long time face this kind of problem.
The odometer can be fixed reasonably quickly. After the gear inside the odometer has worn out the odometer stops working.
To do this, you may not need any special equipment, but you must know what to look for or you might permanently destroy the velocity meter stored in the same gauge as the odometer.
Within a few minutes, you will read through the solutions that will help you fix your odometer to work perfectly again. Let’s know them;
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1. Replace speed sensor if needed
If your odometer doesn’t work, your speed sensor will need to be replaced. These are conveniently mounted near the back of your transmission and found.
If the odometer is just broken, so the gears that spin the odometer are likely to be broken. To get to those gears, you need to pull the instrument cluster, so it’s not that bad to fix it as long as you know what you’re doing.
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2. Remove Dust
Since you have your cluster out, make sure you use compressed air to remove some dust and use a microfiber cloth to clean the translucent plastic.
It’s also a perfect time to refresh and add in a few LEDs for your cluster lighting. Your vehicle will give up that way well before the odometer causes you any more trouble.
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3. Replace the Gears
You can see this tiny plastic clip right here and the blue one. Take the flat head screwdriver. You just want to pop it out and twist the engine and that’s going to get your fuel out and that’s going to get the fuel out.
You just need to get your flat head screwdriver under it like this now to get the black gear out and pop it out and find out the difference! This piece of plastic is cracked, so the black gear is broken as the teeth are missing, so you have to swap it with the new white gear.
You want to make sure this one picks out all the old bits of stuff from here so that the new gear doesn’t jam up. Look at how fragile this piece of plastic is in my hands and it’s all falling apart.
You should grab our new white gear until you’re sure all the old parts are out here, and it’s just going to fit on in.
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4. Check The Connector In Back Of DashBoard
Double-check the connector at the rear of the dashboard to ensure that the visual test and connector are both correctly inserted. Check the 1st fuse box to see if there is an odometer fuse that may also be a concern for you.
Start with the box of fuses. For ECM to accept it can often need to be built or programmed with scanner software.
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5. Wrong sized fuse
It would have been pretty simple. Let’s look at the wrong fuse scale. for instance, you have 15 and you need a fuse of 25.
Also if you did some car work, you likely find something incorrect to retrace your work and correct it accordingly. Another problem that can cause these issues is weak cluster relays.
6. Defective Wiring or ECU
A faulty wire is one reason why the car odometer does not work. For several purposes, the wires will be short, allowing the fuse to blow out and preventing the odometer’s operation.
It exists primarily in older vehicles. A weak wire is a reason why the car’s speedometer does not work. For several purposes, the wires will shorten, allowing the fuse to burst out and halting the speedometer’s operation. It exists primarily in older vehicles.
The Engine Control Unit may be another factor. It is the center of engine functions. Functioning as the computer brain of the vehicle.
It tracks and regulates, like rpm, numerous engine operations. It is obvious that in the event of such ECU problems, the odometer can offer incorrect readings.
You should restart it if the ECU is the culprit, but it would just be a temporary repair. After the installation of the new machine, note to rotate the ignition key to the ‘Auxiliary’ location.
It will allow the ECU to start the process and start adapting to the other engine systems.
Frequently Asked Questions
These are some important questions that almost every user searches on google. We have put some of them for your help.
Mileage not showing?
An odometer will typically not show a reading if the electronics of a car are affected, either by a failure or a storm, crash, or burn.
How to turn the digital odometer back on?
By removing the vehicle’s circuit board to adjust the odometer reading, or using rollback equipment that ties right into the vehicle’s electrical device, optical odometers may be rolled back.
How to reset the odometer?
If you have analog gauges, there could be a knob poking out of the velocity meter, or a reset button if the setup is electrical.
Cost to fix odometer?
If you visit a mechanic, the maintenance costs will go as high as $200-$500, and you have to consider whether or not this is the best decision for you.
How do you check miles with a broken odometer?
You can still check miles with a broken odometer. An odometer scanner is is required for this task. The mileage can be read by connecting it to the scanner into the Onboard Diagnostics Port and accessing the car’s odometer memory. The mileage is then displayed on the screen of the scanner’s tool.
Final Words
Problems with the odometer of old cars are very common and often occur. Through the article, we have described the 6 most possible problems that could occur to make your odometer act funny.
As well as we have also put some solutions that may help you with the odometer issue. These solutions may not be absolute or optimal solutions. But they will show you visible results as you go through them.
