This may be as much a puzzler as a repair question. I’ll let you all decide.
I began having trouble with my instrument cluster a month or so ago. The gear shift indicator would stay stuck in P or D or some other such thing. Finally, it stopped working all together. (No speedo, tach, gas gauge, gear shift indicator.)
I took it in to the local auto electric place. They replaced the cluster with a used unit, whereupon I drove the car home and the next day it started the same thing again. Two days later I had no cluster function once more, except that three lights on the gear shift and odometer stayed on all the time, even when I took the key out!
Unsurprisingly, the battery died about a week later.
Now, when I put the battery charger on, it didn’t look (after about two hours at 10 amps) like there was anything happening because the meter on the charger was on 0 the whole time. So, I disconnected the terminals, put the charger on 50 amps start mode and tried to start the car… unsuccessfully. What happened, though, was that all the gauges started working. Everything was back to normal.
If you can explain this, I would be very appreciative!
Thanks,
Eric
I am sure the instrument cluster replacement was not cheap. Too bad it did not work. Jst out of curiosity do you have more than 6 keys on your key ring? My next best guess would be an ignition switch, though I have seen similar but not the exact same problems with a door switch.