Help! Monaro cluster fault

[Superhans_]

I have a clean FSH LS2 VXR. Suddenly after driving for a few minutes after putting some petrol in, all the analogue needles dropped to zero/empty. At the same time the ABS warning came on. The car was being driven at the time and felt fine. After a few seconds it returned to normal, but then it kept happening despite pulling over and restarting the engine. Whilst the fault was happening, the odometer reading remained, it only seemed to be the analogue needles that were affected.

After another few minutes of driving I pulled up to a car park and had a look under the bonnet. The only wiring I could see was some sort of module on the passenger side near the suspension strut. It has 3 wire harnesses coming out of it. One of which has duct tape on it, so I wiggled it a bit in case theres some loose wires hidden within. I've driven about 30 miles since without fault.

Has anyone had a similar issue?

[SturdyHSV]

I think I've heard of it happening, but I couldn't tell you who it happened to.

The metal box on the passenger side strut tower is the ECU. Most of the cabling in the car is wrapped in black tape inside corrugated plastic trunking, so the tape doesn't necessarily imply anything untoward.

Is the battery definitely OK? Low voltage can trigger funny things.

[Glyn84]

I had something very similar to this just recently - randomly all the analogue dials died and it threw all sorts of ABS and TC warnings, but the digital speedo on the screen remained.

Mine was due to the alternator's voltage regulator. When it spiked to about 15/15.5V the instrument cluster would shut down. When the voltage returned to normal the cluster started up again.

I could monitor the voltage through the OBD port, but also found if you kept an eye on the voltage gauge you could see the voltage rising up until the point it all cut out.

Maybe a worth having a look at this.

[MarvinTPA]

I've had a similar thing on my ( 04 CV8 ) dash. After no use for a couple of weeks in the winter, it'll be working fine, then all needles slowly drop to 1/2 or less of proper readings. I've put this down to damp somewhere, and it's cleared after a restart ( when everything has warmed through of course ).

[Superhans_]

Glyn84 said:

I had something very similar to this just recently - randomly all the analogue dials died and it threw all sorts of ABS and TC warnings, but the digital speedo on the screen remained.

Mine was due to the alternator's voltage regulator. When it spiked to about 15/15.5V the instrument cluster would shut down. When the voltage returned to normal the cluster started up again.

I could monitor the voltage through the OBD port, but also found if you kept an eye on the voltage gauge you could see the voltage rising up until the point it all cut out.

Maybe a worth having a look at this.

Nice to hear I'm not the only one. So did your car keep doing it until you replaced the alternator?

[Superhans_]

MarvinTPA said:

I've had a similar thing on my ( 04 CV8 ) dash. After no use for a couple of weeks in the winter, it'll be working fine, then all needles slowly drop to 1/2 or less of proper readings. I've put this down to damp somewhere, and it's cleared after a restart ( when everything has warmed through of course ).

When you say reset, what did you do?

[Superhans_]

SturdyHSV said:

I think I've heard of it happening, but I couldn't tell you who it happened to.

The metal box on the passenger side strut tower is the ECU. Most of the cabling in the car is wrapped in black tape inside corrugated plastic trunking, so the tape doesn't necessarily imply anything untoward.

Is the battery definitely OK? Low voltage can trigger funny things.

I replaced the battery this year and I've done a couple of thousand miles on it. Could you tell me what voltage your gauge shows, so I can compare?

[Glyn84]

Superhans_ said:

Nice to hear I'm not the only one. So did your car keep doing it until you replaced the alternator?

Pretty much yep. It started occasionally and progressively got more frequent. You could see the volt gauge moving around and once it hit around 15.5v the dash turned off. Once I replaced the alternator (turned out to be a really simple job) everything was fine again.

I replaced it with this one, which is the same as the original alternator. Came to about £260 with the postage and import duties etc.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/132037145369

Edited by Glyn84 on Tuesday 11th April 08:21

[SturdyHSV]

Superhans_ said:

I replaced the battery this year and I've done a couple of thousand miles on it. Could you tell me what voltage your gauge shows, so I can compare?

I've not driven it recently but it sits at around 14v when the engine is running. It sounds like Glyn is probably more on the money than my battery suggestion

[Superhans_]

Superhans_ said:

Nice to hear I'm not the only one. So did your car keep doing it until you replaced the alternator?

Great thanks for that. I'll keep an eye on the voltage if it happens again.

[Superhans_]

Glyn84 said:

Pretty much yep. It started occasionally and progressively got more frequent. You could see the volt gauge moving around and once it hit around 15.5v the dash turned off. Once I replaced the alternator (turned out to be a really simple job) everything was fine again.

I replaced it with this one, which is the same as the original alternator. Came to about £260 with the postage and import duties etc.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/132037145369

Edited by Glyn84 on Tuesday 11th April 08:21

Had the same issue again today twice. Both times the voltage rose up then the clock needles dropped. Can you confirm that the alternator change has still solved all your problems?