Odometer, Tripometer & Gas Guage Turning On/Off

[cdub013]

Hello! I have an '02 Vue with digital display. Over the past 2 months my tripometer, odometer and gas guage have all been going haywire. They turn on and off sometimes with an audible clicking noise. At first it was something that only occurred perhaps once every other day or so. Now, it can happen anywhere from 3 or 4 times per minute or once every hour. More recently, the backlighting for all of these guages has went out. Even when they appear to be working fine the gas guage is off by as much as half a tank (right after filling up it'll drop down to half a tank and then back up but never back to completely full). The odometer and tripometer basically reset to whatever it was on when I last started the vehicle. I've read many threads and am leaning towards the root cause being the BCM but after talking to a mechanic at a dealership I'm really not sure. Any help anyone?

[D C]

Unlike old cars, the instrument cluster in new cars is 'dumb'. It's just a display of information that's contained elsewhere. In the VUE's case, all of that info is contained in the BCM.

Kind of like your computer. If you see something weird on the monitor, or a program isn't working right, it's probably the fault of the computer not the monitor.

There's a chance that there's a cluster problem in addition to a BCM or other problem, but a dealer should be able to sort that out easily.

[WLKVUE]

A friend of mine had similar problems, in a different vehicle. Took it in yesterday and the mechanic found a loose connection. He says it works fine now. His vehicle is 5 years old. You might be lucky and have a cheap fix.

[burlyvue2]

cdub013,

From the symptoms you are describing I would definitely suspect a wiring issue. My Vue had a similar issue and it turned out to be a broken wire inside a perfect looking cable harness. It drove the Saturn tech's mental trying to get it figured. The signal wire would make and break connection while driving. The break in my Vues wiring was under the cover where the transmission shift handle is located.

Maybe you could track your harness wiring by using a multimeter to check each wire or just replace it with new. It was the harness from the BCM but that was as much info I got from the techs. Good luck. Wiring issues can be the toughest to solve.

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