So, when I first got my civic, the title read Odometer exempt. Fine. My biggest issue is just getting the speedo to work. through the years ive owned it, Ive replaced the speed sensor, auto cruise control unit and the actual speedometer unit with another from a similar civic. Nothing seems to solve it.

Another thing i noticed was that, 70% of the time, if i turned on or turned up my heater fan, the speedo would stop working until i turned it off. Same thing with the directional blinkers: it would work intermittently with the blinkers.


At this point, i can track roughly the mileage i go before the next oil change. Im mostly worried about getting the freaking thing to work. My next move is a while new cluster.
PS- Car has about 287K miles on it.

Any Ideas?

 

Have you tried another cluster or at least another speedometer head? They do go bad sometimes.

 

@94EG8,
By head, do you mean whole speedo unit that in the gauge cluster? Yes, Ive replaced the entire speedo unit inside the cluster. same results as before. I am going to, down the road, replace the entire gauge cluster. Im even threatening to make a custom cluster with Autometer gauges....but with the age and mileage of the car, i kinda decided not to. My main concern is knowing how fast im going. Its...kinda important
Thanks for the reply

 

Yep, sometimes you'll get a couple of bad ones in a row (or something like 3 or 4 in my case) Btw, if it does work intermitantly find out how fast you're going in each gear and see what RPM the tach is at (if you have one) I drove my Si around like that for a few months.

 

Haha, thanks for the tip! I did that: for the past 3 years ive worked with it that way. Now its just not working. Ill head down to my Car salvage yard and pull another speedo.
Thanks again

 

Any CEL codes? Have you checked the wires for an open or short?

 

94EG8,

While were on the speedometer system topic, I got a cruise control unit out of a JHGEG8 civic today. My 1HGEG8 cruise control ecu unit part # is 36700-SR4-A22, but the JHGEG8 cruise control ecu is 36700-SR4-A23. would this change in 1 number cause the system not to work or the part to be incompatible with the rest of the car?

 

@RonJ,
Ive checked for CEL: i get code 17- VSS. Ive replaced the VSS 3 times. Ive also checked for water/moisture in the VSS socket as it is right near flying debris and water from the road. picked up another VSS from a JHGEG8, packed it with dielectric grease, and installed it. no difference...

 

I also checked wires: everything looks proper. no damage appears present in the electrical wiring.

 

Given that you have replaced both the speedometer and VSS, CEL code 17 suggests that there is a short or open in the circuit or that the ECU is bad. The short could be in any wire in the circuit or even inside the cluster. If you know how to use a multimeter, you can trace the problem without replacing parts at random.

 

Visual inspection is an unreliable way to check wires. A multimeter is what you need.

 

RonJ,
I believe the problem is in the gauge cluster itself. Can you point me in a direction to start testing the speedometer to find what the problem might be?
thanks

 

Same thing, first one is '92 only second one is '92 - '94

If it's throwing a VSS code it's the not the cluster. I should have asked if it was throwing any CEL codes but completely forgot to.

 

If you are confident that the cluster is the problem, then swap in a known good one.

But what brings you to this conclusion? Are you guessing? If so, then I suggest that you instead methodically test the circuit for an open or a short. For example, use a multimeter to:

1) Check whether the VSS gets voltage on the power wire and has good ground on the blk ground wire.

2) Check whether the VSS signal wire has an open or short between the VSS and the ECU, speedometer, or cruise control.

3) Check whether the signal wire at the VSS receives reference voltage from the ECU and speedometer.

 

@RonJ,
Ill go over the steps.

Oh, i missed a couple of things Ron, my civic can go 20, 40, 60 and 100 mph while its not moving at all. Also, I can be going 20mph and it would read anywhere between 0 and 40 mph. and when im going 50+, itl tick around 20 to 60. I tested this all the way home for about 21 miles. intermittent half the way and dead the rest of the way.

 

@94EG8,

I finally solved it! I cut off the stock VSS connector and stripped the wires to find wires all blackened up. I went to a salvage yard and pulled a better vss harness from the same vehicle. I had a friend of mine pull a 3 pin VSS from a civic with 150k. Rewiried the better harness into the car and put in the 3 pin VSS and voala! It works!

The problem was two-fold: the wiring, although carrying proper voltage, was all corroded and the vss had the cheap 2 pin connector which im guessing isnt even factory to properly run the vss system in the civic.