QuestionQUESTION: One day out of the blue i was driving my 92 4runner, V6 Auto, and i was cruising at 35, then my speedometer suddenly jumped up to about 70 and it would also shift into 5th gear. Then the speedometer would be stuck at 0 and it would not let me out of neutral. The speedo was just jumping randomly and shifting accordingly. This all happened immediately after i installed a new battery. The weird thing about it was that i hopped into the car the next day and it was fine. I was about to drive it to the mechanic but it drove fine. So I'm stumped, what could possibly cause this?
ANSWER: Disconnecting the battery may have caused a temporary computer glitch, although not common but possible, I would recommend having any trouble codes retreived that may be stored in the computer and go from there. Unless the problem comes back I wouldn't worry about it.
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QUESTION: I was unclear on what you meant by having any trouble codes retrieved that may be stored in the computer, but the problem occurred again. What part could be causing this to happen because obviously it was not a glitch or else it would not have happened again. Is there a computer sensor specifically for the tranny or the speedo. I am confused, help me out a bit. Thank you.
AnswerA common problem is that the vehicle speed sensor on the transmission has an intermittent failure, at this time I would recommend replacing it. The trouble codes can be checked by locating the diagnostic connector under the hood, it should be near the right fender, open the cover and find the terminals TE1+E1 and put a small jumper wire between them, with the key on the check engine light will flash a two digit number, one blink followed by two would be a code 12 and so on. If there are no trouble codes then the light will flash of/on with no pattern.
