2003 Chrysler Town and Country odometer & tacometer

2003 CHRYSLER TOWN AND COUNTRY
105,000 MILES • 6 CYL • FWD • AUTOMATIC
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RSIMP
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Our Chrysler has been sitting for a while without being driven and as a result the battery died. After I jumped the car and while driving it home to charge the battery I noticed the odometer & tach do not function and basically the needle on both have turned to the extreme clockwise position so that he needle is on the underside of the pin that stops it when the vehicle is off. Any suggestions.
Dec 22, 2009 at 3:48 PM
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CARADIODOC
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Welcome to the world of unnecessarily overcomplicated computer-controlled gauges. This would never happen on older spring-loaded gauges.

The gauges are stepper motors that use four coils to position the pointers. The magnetic fields are trying to bring the pointer back to zero, but the shortest way there is to go clockwise. There are three ways to fix this. One way is to drive faster than half the top speed on the speedometer. The pointer should find its proper position, then follow the magnetic fields back down as the vehicle slows down. Quickly speeding the engine up to more than half scale on the tach should do the same thing. The second fix is to have your dealer connect their hand-held scanner and perform the gauge tests. That will run the gauges to 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, and full scale,then back to zero. After full scale, the speedometer and tach will go back to zero. The third fix is to remove the lens and physically push the pointers back down counter-clockwise.

caradiodoc
Dec 24, 2009 at 1:51 AM