Why would the gages all of sudden go haywire. 172000 miles
Bad ground? Voltage regulator?
Which gages? Describe “haywire”.
There are systems that drivve more than one gage that when bad can cause specific symptoms, but you gotta give us more to work with here.
Electro-magnetic pulses.
Most modern instrument clusters are mounted on a single circuit board or at least connected to one…This board must have a good ground and it will have a voltage regulator sometimes 5.5 volts, sometimes 7.5 or 9.0. This constant voltage keeps the gauges reading from fluctuating as the cars electrical system can go from 12.0 to 15.0 volts. The gauges never see that fluctuation. When all the gauges malfunction, it’s usually a bad ground connection behind the dashboard…