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Gauges not working

Mariasyque

Full Member
Joined
Dec 7, 2015
Messages
9
I hope someone has an answer for me. I have a 2004. About almost 6 months ago the gauges stared not turning on as soon as I turn on the truck it will take a few minutes for them to turn on. Eventually about 3 weeks ago one day they started going crazy.. on off on off and the odometer will read error with a bunch of zeros. So now they don't come on at all. Now the lights on top do come on. Blinkers, emergency lights, check engine. Those do turn on. My light engine turn on today I thought it was the same issue. I went to auto zone and they told me it was a sensor I replaced it on the spot and light is off now, but of course gauge still not working.. . speedometer, gas, temperature etc they don't come on and also the odometer. So of course any alerts like low gas or what ever messages I can get those don't come on. It's dead.
I took out the entire thing and does not seem to be corroded wires, nothing like that. Help!
 
The very first thing I would do is have the battery LOAD TESTED.

Most auto parts store will do this for you for free.

I bought a load tester at Harbor Freight so I can test my own.

A battery with weak, dying or dead cells can cause all sorts of weird electrical things to happen in these trucks.

In your first statement, you said the gauges would not operate at first, but would come on after a few minutes.

If starting the truck used most of the available electricity stored in the battery, then I could see where other electronic devices might not behave correctly until the alternator was able to get the battery recharged to a certain level.

If the battery checks out fine with the LOAD TEST, then the next thing that comes to mind would be the ignition switch.

I would lean toward a bad battery.
 
Open the case and look for bad solder joints
 
First of all please do not post multiple postings for same issue. Even if posted in wrong section. Moderators will move to proper location.

You need to have your cluster rebuilt. You likely have a bad solder joint or the power capacitor is going out. You could try fixing yourself like I tried to do without success or just send it out and be done with it.

I paid $200 for a used one before ending up having mine rebuilt by Dash Doctor near me for $150 over a year ago. He also repaired the temp readout on my mirror for $60. I live locally to him and he totally rebuilt mine in under 2 hours so he will certainly return it to you quickly.

dashdr.com

And last I knew he gives lifetime warranties.
 
EXT4ME said:
The very first thing I would do is have the battery LOAD TESTED.

Most auto parts store will do this for you for free.

I bought a load tester at Harbor Freight so I can test my own.

A battery with weak, dying or dead cells can cause all sorts of weird electrical things to happen in these trucks.

In your first statement, you said the gauges would not operate at first, but would come on after a few minutes.

If starting the truck used most of the available electricity stored in the battery, then I could see where other electronic devices might not behave correctly until the alternator was able to get the battery recharged to a certain level.

If the battery checks out fine with the LOAD TEST, then the next thing that comes to mind would be the ignition switch.

I would lean toward a bad battery.

Thank you! The battery is pretty much new. We replaced it last year. I was not aware the ignition problems could be connected to the gauges. I will look into this. My ignition has been giving me issues for a while now too. I think it's more of it's old type of thing. It's kinda loose.  I have to double check it went all the way down otherwise I leave the ignition on and the key does come out even when the the ignition is on. I will replace it and see if that will solve this other problem. (Either way I gotta do this asap)
 
redheadedrod said:
First of all please do not post multiple postings for same issue. Even if posted in wrong section. Moderators will move to proper location.

Sorry. I tried deleting and moving but I'm not very familiar how. Now I know. Thanks!
 
Mariasyque said:
Thank you! The battery is pretty much new. We replaced it last year. I was not aware the ignition problems could be connected to the gauges. I will look into this. My ignition has been giving me issues for a while now too. I think it's more of it's old type of thing. It's kinda loose.  I have to double check it went all the way down otherwise I leave the ignition on and the key does come out even when the the ignition is on. I will replace it and see if that will solve this other problem. (Either way I gotta do this asap)

A lot of electrical systems route through connections in the ignition switch and a worn out ignition switch can cause weird symptoms in many different places in these trucks.

The ignition "switch" is not the ignition lock cylinder assembly, but the two work together.

If you can remove your key with the truck running, that indicates the ignition lock cylinder (or the key itself) is worn out, and I would imagine the ignition switch may be worn as well since they are the same age and work together.

Someone here can most likely point to a diagram or picture of where these devices are located and how they interact.

Auto Zone shows an ignition switch for around $35 or so.

If you know you have some worn out parts on this 14 year old truck, I would think making those parts right would be a good thing and perhaps help in solving the problems you are experiencing.

As mentioned above, the cluster could also be defective and that may very well be your problem.

But I would start with repairing the items you KNOW are bad first since they need to be replaced anyway.

It would be a nice bonus if that repair fixed other problems along the way.

Don't forget, if you replace a ignition lock cylinder, you will have to deal with an ignition key that will not match other locks on your truck, unless you have some things rekeyed.

Something to consider before you just up and change that part.

Perhaps getting a fresh key cut first would help in that regard.

(y)
 
Ok reading the OP messages...

I am assuming you mean the lights come on when you turn your key on but the cluster its self doesn't work.

The turn signals and some other lights are driven directly from the BCM. The gauges and odometer are driven off the dataline and powered by the cluster.

If you are getting most of the top lights lighting up during startup, they go back out after a couple seconds or so,  the gauges are not moving and the display is acting weird this is the Cluster going bad and has nothing to do with anything else. Checking your battery, or swapping out the ignition switch will do nothing for you. You need to replace or rebuild your cluster. If you replace with a used one it will have the same weaknesses the one you have now does. These clusters have poorly designed gauge motors. The rebuilt ones have new motors in them. And as I mentioned already the person I suggest you go with gives lifetime warranties on the cluster so no good reason to try doing it yourself. I damaged a cluster I was working on for another vehicle. I ended up having to buy a new cluster for that vehicle which was more than if I had just had it rebuilt in the first place.

If you rebuild your cluster you can have a new face put on, led backlighting or add the trans temp gauge with a new face for a few dollars more.
 
I have a 2003 and my gauges are giving me some issues. I have no working gauges , no lights no mileage display . I can see the low fuel light , check engine light and seat belt light flash every 30 seconds or so. Nothing else works . The next time I started truck everything worked fine for the rest of the day multiple starts. The next day everything is dead again and has been out for 3-4 days. This doesnt seem like the typical cluster rebuild issues , right?

Thanks,
Vin
 
Sounds like my truck... You can talk to the guy at dash doctor and he does a pretty good job of telling you if that is the problem or not. Mine was a power capacitor the last time. It eventually went out but would work sometimes when I started my truck and was very intermittent. Became less likely to work over time.
 
Since the doctor is on my way to work I dropped it off and he was done totally rebuilding it an hour later. I had many hours into doing some stuff on it on my own and having torched another cluster trying to do the same thing I decided the $150 for the full rebuild with lifetime warranty was worth it.

Note that since your sending yours in I can't tell you how much he will charge. And he did mine a year or so ago. He also fixed the display on my mirror for the temp for like $60. Swapped out my needles for free to blue ones. I had white ones with a white face and couldn't see the needles in the daylight.

Rodney
 
I removed my cluster and took a look nothing obvious looked bad. I reconnected it and it works now ,lol. Everything is back to normal. Lucky ? I guess time will tell. It had been 3-4 days now.
 
I had the same problem with my 03, gauges going nuts! Needles would spike everywhere, 4wd message pops up, gas going back and forth etc. My solution ended up being the body control module. The solder joints must have cracked and loosened cause my entire interior to go haywire. I ended up running my heatgun over the motherboard for about a minute and a half, let it cool and everything was back to normal!
 
Wow, Mine is a 2004 and just started doing this. Thanks for all the good info.
 
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