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Digital Flashing Odometer on Ford Trucks and SUVs – Save Hundreds by Fixing It Yourself

Digital Flashing Odometer on Ford Trucks and SUVs – Save Hundreds by Fixing It Yourself

Many owners of Ford F-series trucks (F150, F250 and F350) and full-size sport utility vehicles (Explorer and Expedition) built for the 1999 to 2003 model years are dealing with a very frustrating, but very common problem, with your odometer. . The digital odometers on these vehicles seem to have a mind of their own. One minute the odometer works fine and a moment later the digital mileage display suddenly goes dark or disappears completely for no apparent reason. Sometimes the screen can be restored with a firm tap on the dash. At other times, nothing seems to help. The screen often comes back unexpectedly, works fine for a while and then disappears again. This erratic cycle gets progressively worse until the odometer finally doesn’t work at all.

If you own one of these vehicles, you will most likely be able to identify your odometer status, as well as your own mental state, as intermittent odometer “disease” progresses through the following stages:

1. It won’t happen to me. You haven’t seen anything unusual on your digital odometer. Congratulations! You are one of the lucky ones and you may never have to deal with the problem. But you may want to read the rest of this article just in case. Please note that if you ever see the problem (even once), chances are good that WILL see it again.

2. The odometer problem is not that bad and I can just live with it. Your vehicle has developed the problem, but it has only happened a few times and it is still not bad enough to consider spending money to repair it. You will occupy it later YES it gets worse and YES it does not cost too much to repair. Also, so far it’s been pretty easy to just hit the dash to restore the screen every time it goes blank.

3. It has gotten really bad and is causing unexpected problems. Your odometer is blank most of the time. You have no way of knowing when to perform mileage-based maintenance such as fluid changes, tire rotations, wheel alignments, etc. Service providers will not honor your mileage-based warranties (extended warranties, tire warranties, major repairs, etc.) because they cannot determine if guaranteed miles have elapsed. You have thought about exchanging the vehicle, but you can only get a very low trade-in value. It is valued as a high mileage vehicle even though you know the actual vehicle miles are very low for the model year. But you can’t test it because the odometer doesn’t work. Time to visit the dealer and repair the odometer. It will surely not be expensive to repair.

4. I visited my Ford dealer today to see if my odometer was repaired. I’m still in shock! I was not prepared at all for the $ 600 estimate. The dealer said the instrument cluster is faulty and the only way to repair it is to replace the instrument cluster with a new one. More than $ 400 for the group plus $ 200 for the installation and programming of the new group according to the mileage of the vehicle and the PATS system. I decided that I could live with the problem for a while longer. I need to look for cheaper alternatives. I think I saw the odometer blink for a brief moment one day last week. Perhaps it can be repaired rather than replaced. I’ll check with some odometer repair shops.

5. I spent most of the week calling odometer repair shops. I’d be happy to pay the $ 150 to $ 200 that most repair shops charge to fix this problem. The only thing holding me back is the fact that I have to remove my instrument cluster and send it to the repair shop. They told me they would try to repair it next week or maybe the following week if I could bring the group to them later this week. Unfortunately, I never removed an instrument cluster and I am afraid of damaging it (or my vehicle). Also, someone told me that my vehicle will not work without having the instrument cluster installed. Looks like I’ll have to rent a vehicle for a couple of weeks while the group gets repaired. Namely, YES I can figure out how to remove the cluster without destroying something important. I’m sure the rental car is going to be expensive. Perhaps paying the dealer $ 600 is not so irrational after all. If only I had $ 600 to spare. On the other hand, maybe you should try to live with the problem. Or maybe you should change the vehicle. But I need to fix the odometer before changing it. I am sooo confused!

Tea GOOD NEWS is that the common cause of most intermittent odometer problems has been identified and CAN be repaired without replacing the instrument cluster. You do not need to spend $ 600 for the dealer to replace the group.

Tea Better news is that there is no serious problem with your odometer. Your odometer keeps running and accurately tracks your mileage. The display problem is caused by one (or more) faulty solder joints on a printed circuit board (located at the rear of the instrument cluster). These faulty solder joints prevent odometer signals from reaching the odometer display module. It just can’t show the mileage due to faulty solder joints.

Tea Better news is that it is not necessary to send the instrument cluster to a repair shop for repair because …You can fix it yourself! A number of online forums they may be found discussing the intermittent odometer problem. These forums provide several years of feedback from many people who have fixed their own odometer problem. These pioneers discuss the lessons learned through their own trial and error and share the resulting successes and mistakes with other forum members. You should be able to repair your own odometer if you first read these forums carefully and apply the knowledge to your own repair efforts.

Don’t rush and attempt the repair before you’ve read the entire threads, so you can plan ahead and avoid the mistakes many people have made over the years, some of which resulted in overwork, headlight switches. broken, damaged trim and paint, etc. All of this can be prevented by learning how to remove each component the right way before trying to do it yourself.

If you are still not comfortable with attempting the repair after studying the forums (or if you would rather have all the information extracted and presented in a concise, detailed and easy to follow guide), there is still even better news.

Tea Great news is that all the information in these forums, including lessons learned from others’ mistakes, has already been meticulously extracted, combined with additional experiences of performing the repair, and has been transformed into a detailed and richly detailed intermittent odometer repair manual. illustrated, which will guide you step-by-step through repairing your own odometer. If you can use a low voltage (less than 30 watts) screwdriver and soldering iron, you can get this repair done from start to finish in about two hours and for relatively low cost.

If you are not proficient with a soldering iron, you can use the repair manual to easily remove your instrument cluster and identify faulty solder joints. You can then have the actual repair (soldering the faulty solder joints) done at a local electronics repair shop. In most cases, solder joints can be re-soldered in just a couple of minutes at a cost of less than two dollars.

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