gauge Failure

[MattB]

I was driving home today in my 95 G20 and all of a sudden my tach dropped to zero. The car stayed running fine but even after I shut the car down and restarted it the tach still reads zero. It twitches a little bit when the car is first started, so I think it's getting power. I don't think it's an electrical issue since everything else works perfectly. Is the tach just fried? It wasn't working too well before this either so I think it's the culprit, and I've heard electromechanical guages tend to go bad after a while...

[MattB]

Anybody have any information that could help speed an Infiniti tech's diagnosis of the problem?

[cweberj30t]

You need to replace your tach or replace the entire cluster. I found one off ebay for less than $20. Keep your eyes peeled.

[MattB]

Thanks for the info. Did you have a similar problem with your J?

I think I'm just going to go ahead and have the thing replaced with a new one since a used one might just develop the same problem quickly. I also wouldn't trust the repair to anyone but Infiniti technicians, and Infiniti won't touch used parts. I just wanted to confirm that the tach is what needs replacing before having the dealer order the part.

[cweberj30t]

The tach alone they wanted $250 and then you have to take the original tach out of the cluster and install the new one. Not worth it in my opinion. I was going to leave it be and not fix it until I found a used cluster. After all, it is an automatic and I'm not too concerned about seeing what RPM I'm shifting at. Although I am terribly anal when it comes to **** like that.

[MattB]

Yeah, I'm kind of nuts about that kind of thing too. I can't stand having an inoperable gauge on my dash...especially since I've been driving a lot of brand new Acuras at work....but $250 for the part? That's it? My local dealer wants somewhere in the $400 range + $90 install.

[mpoyner]

If you can get a used one for $20 or somewhere thereabout on eBay, even if it fails sometime in the next couple of years, which is doubtful, you can just buy another one for $20.

If your dealer wants $500 total, then you would need to have 25 of them fail before it would have been worth the dealer price.

Seems like overkill to insist on an Infiniti dealer for something that is just a swap-out.

[cweberj30t]

Here is one on ebay with 100k on it. It's worth saving some money to risk failure in my opinion.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors...89495