Hello I am new to this forum so I am sorry if this is old news....

My '95 Civic speedometer works occasionally. Mostly it is just at 0, but sometimes it jumps around wildly. When it does work it goes for a few minutes or hours before failing again. Resetting the trip meter used to fix it, but now even that does not work.

The dealer told me I needed a new speedo head (Is that actually gauge?), but they also said that if that is bad the cruise control will not work and that actually works fine no matter what the speedo is doing. That and wanting $500 for the repair left me looking for alternatives....any ideas?

 

It probably is the speedometer head. That is the part only with the speedometer, attached to the whole instrument cluster (e.g., tach, speedometer, fuel gauge, etc.).

The speedometer head alone is probably $150 from Honda.

You probably can pick up a used whole instrument cluster from Ebay or a salvage yard for around $50. (Then you can either swap just the speedometer head or the whole cluster.) The speedometer head removes easily with like 4 philips screws from the back of the instrument cluster, once you get the cluster out.

It is mainly labor to take out the instrument cluster (it's several hours). You can do it yourself. I don't have a civic, but usually you have to take off the center console, then several screws on the instrument cluster bezel. Not very hard, but time consuming.

 

It's most likely the circuit board on the back of the speedometer unit. You can buy an instrument cluster from a CX on eBay and swap the board over onto your speedo.

Removing the instrument cluster is fairly easy. As I recall, there are 3 screws holding the trim bezel in. 2 are facing upwards into the eyebrow of the dash, and one is hidden behind the hazard switch (you need to gently pry that out with a small screwdriver or knife). Once you have those removed, pull the trim out.

The cluster is held in with 4 screws, and has I think, 3 electrical connectors. It's pretty awkward to remove them, but just keep at it. The cluster needs some wrestling to get it out. Once you have the cluster out, remove the clear cover by pushing in the tabs. Then remove the black cover by pushing in those tabs.

The speedometer is held in with 3 screws - remove them, and then you can pull out the unit. You can now see the circuit board that's causing your issue. Remove the board by pushing the tabs in and pulling the board out (the board is connected to speedo by a bunch of pins).

Swap the board out and put everything back together.

 

mine does that do but my problem is the vss (vehicle speed sensor) on the tranny, so that just needs changing