QuestionA few months back my air bag light began staying on and the lights on AC heat etc started flashing, they will stop about 25 minutes after I start driving each time. Then my speedometer, gas guage, temp guages stopped working occasionally, now all 3 dont work. What is going on. We unhooked battery for an hour and it didnt reset.
AnswerHi Becky,
If the van is running ok then it is more likely a problem with the instrument cluster itself, perhaps a bad solder connection between the electrical plug socket pins and circuit board itself. You might try striking the top of the dash panel with moderate force to see if that jars anything back into action, as some techs have suggested to test this theory. If that changes things, then removing the cluster and resoldering the connectors will probably restore the function of the gauges. Another possibility is that the digital data that runs the gauges isn't being received. That might be revealed by a fault code readout of the memory of the body computer. That is something that is often done for free at Autozone parts stores, of for around $40 at an idependent shop. Get the fault code 4-digit numbers if any and ask what they mean. Then let me know and we can compare that with manuals.
If the abs light is still on then I would suspect that the electrical connection between the steering column and the steering wheel (called the clockspring) has fatigued as far as the air bag module is concerned. That is tested every time the car is started to determine that the air bag will deploy in the event of a crash. That flexible wire is the weakest link in the system so that is why I suspect it. It may be, if found defective, replaced free of charge under a recall or federal standard for the reliability of such safety devices. So you could take that issue to the dealer and see whether that might be the case.
The flashing of the AC is related to diagnostic testing that somehow is not being completed. It is a sign of a self-diagnostic test that you can initiate by following instructions, and again any faults will be revealed. It is complicated to explain here but I can xerox copy and postal mail a few pages to you so you can check this out yourself and perhaps either learn something about the system that may be "off" or at least stop the flashing.
Use the "thank and rate" tab to tell me a postal mailing address to which to send this information.
I thus hope you can square away these several problems.
Roland
