Dashboard issues in 1993 BMW 318i

kewene1219
Fri, 14 Dec 2012 05:19:54 +0000
Maintenance/Repairs

Since the beginning of August, I’ve had an intermittent problem with my dashboard turning on and off. What happens is all the guages and the mileage meter just go down like I’ve turned the car off, and then after any interval of time (it can be anywhere from one second to 20 minutes) turn back on again like I’ve turned the car back on. They lights in the dash remain on, and the engine continues to run. There doesn’t seem to be one consistent thing that triggers the problem. It happens in all temperatures, at all speeds, in all gears (it’s a manual transmission), with the radio on and off, when the engine is running and when just the battery is turned on, with the headlights on and off, with the radio on and off, when something is or isn’t plugged into the cigarette lighter, going over bumps, going over smooth road, speeding up, slowing down, and maintaining speed. When it happens it can be several times in a row (on off on off) or just off for awhile and then on. It seems to happen for several weeks at a time and then not happen for several weeks.

It’s been in and out of the garage several times for this problem. They’ve determined that it’s not the instrument cluster or a faulty connection. Most recently, my mechanic took it to a specialist to look at all the wiring, and they couldn’t find anything wrong with it. I have had everything done to try to resolve this problem barring replacing the dashboard and all the wiring, which there’s a lot of.

Any thoughts or solutions that anyone has for this issue would be greatly appreciated.

4 posts - 4 participants