There were a couple of signs telling me not to drive to St. Petersburg, but as I left Fort Lauderdale on I-75 on a beautiful Sunday with my girlfriend to see the Salvador Dali Museum and to visit some friends, I put it all out of my mind and settled into the 4 hour drive.
About 10 miles into the trip on Alligator Alley I reached down into the instrument cluster to press the milage reset button so I could count my miles when I noticed I was traveling at ** ZERO FREAKIN' MPH!! **
The "ABS" light was on, the "check engine" light was on, and my speedometer wasn't working. I also wasn't adding miles to the guage.
I pulled over and restarted the car, but it was still the same. Just the night before the car was just fine. (The warranty just ran out 900 miles ago, can you believe that?)
Well, I smacked the dash a few times, and racked my brain trying to figure out why my previously bulletproof truck was testing me, and finally just settled into telling speed by the tachometer (3k in 5th gear = 80mph). We had a fantabulous day. =)
The truck is a 2000 ford ranger.
The general questions are: Has anyone experienced this with their ranger? Any ideas as to how to fix this or what is causing it?
My suspicion is a blown fuse, I'm going to check that now.
I forgot to say why the speedometer was possessed.
Somewhere around Bradenton (a half hour from St. Pete) the following conversation took place:
Deimos' Girlfriend: You're driving too fast.
Deimos: How can you tell?
D.G.: Cos your speedometer's working.
Deimos: :::looks down, breathes sigh of relief:::
11 miles later, still near Bradenton...
D: I figured something would break after the
warranty expired.
D.G.: You should've bought a volkswagon. (as soon as
she said this, the speedometer died.)
On the way back home, about 15 hours later, the girlfriend was telling me about how she's never had a problem with her golf and as she was telling me how good of a car it was, I noticed that the speedometer was clicking on and off. The best way to describe it would be that it seemed like something was making contact for a second or so, then breaking contact.
I blame the talk about the golf, though. :D
I don’t know about the speedo problem, but you may be able to negotiate with Ford on the warranty. You can check this website, if you want some hints about dealing with repair shops. They will also answer questions by e-mail. http://www.salemboysauto.com
I had a similar occurence in my '95 Legacy. The speedometer was working fine and then would all of a sudden stop working and only start working when I was accelerating. Shortly after that started my ABS light and check engine light came on. This happened several times and then prgressed to my car not starting. I finally gave up on fixing it myself and took it to a mechanic and fouind that I had a bad alternator.
try edmunds.com find your car, find the forum for it, ask the guys there who also have your exact car. Also talk to ford dealership near you. check for recalls. get the Haynes manual for your car from an auto store. etc.
It might be that your vehicle speed sensor has lunched it. The VSS is a magnetic gizmo that sends a signal from the transmission output shaft to the speedo head which moves the needle on the indicator. It’s possible that if the VSS failed it sent a trouble code to the engine control module, which would explain the “check engine” light. Why the ABS light is on I have no idea.
DEFINITELY raise hell with the dealer over this. The VSS is something that usually doesn’t need replacing and if that is indeed the problem, you should get it fixed on FoMoCo’s nickel. If the dealer gives you the runaround, take it to the zone office and don’t stop complaining until you get a check in the mail with a return address in Detroit.
The ABS light would be on because if the car can’t coordinate the wheel speed to the vehicle speed, the ABS can’t work. Since one of the inputs is gone, the ABS doesn’t have enough information to work. The check engine light is most likely on since you have a sensor that is not working somewhere (not necessarily a bad sensor, but an electrical problem of sorts). I’d suggest a short of some kind, since the problem seem intermitant, but I wouldn’t even know where to begin to diagnose that.
Same thing happened to me with my '98 Jeep, except my entire instrument cluster went dead. All I needed to do to fix it was kick the knee-plate of the dash under the steering wheel, and it came back on. (Repair technique #1a)
Strangely enough, a week later at work we got a service update on this problem. Seems like the powerc contacts for the cluster are prone to corrosion and you need to take apart the entire dash to fix it. Heh. I wonder if I should send them my solution?
