Celica Forums General Discussion General Broken Tachometer - Am I Screwed?

Yesterday, after soldering in my new blue LED's for my Gas and temperature display, my tach stopped moving. I thought that maybe I didnt put it back together right but after taking it apart several times, it still doesnt work. I heard that you would have to buy a whole new cluster if you broke one thing on the stock one. Is there anything I can do or buy or am I screwed?

you didnt take the needles off did you?

yeah i did...why?

you're gonna have to get those recalibrated dude. could mean big trouble.

You can recalibrate them yourself...thats not the problem though. Its not moving at all.

Well unless you changed the color of the needles you had no reason to take the needles off to change the LED's. Have you popped the needle off again and put it back on?

It is not likely that you killed your cluster by changing the LEDs. If you have an aftermarket gauge face, make sure the tach needle is not pushed on so far that its hub is binding on the gauge face. Are all of the LEDs lighting properly? Did you do any other work to the circuit board such as swapping the tach and speedo positions by the jumper technique?
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I Didnt do any other work. All of the LED's seem to be working right but i'll check. Do you think that could be the problem?

Disregard the question about all the LEDs working. I should have asked if you are certain that you did not mistakenly put an LED where a capacitor or resistor should be? Also check to make sure that you did not short any of the traces on the board with excess solder.

Did you remember to put them back in the correct spot when you put them back in?

damn...i changed the color of my needles just yesterday but mine still works fine...the rpms on the cluster is slightly off from the rpms on my autometer tach...check to see if the tach needle is actually plugged into where its supposed to go...you could have missed the mechanism that controls the needle...just a thought tho

Just brought the car into the dealership...any ideas what there gonna say? Im thinking there gonna tell me that I need a whole new gauge cluster for like $400.

That's what they'll most likely say. They wanna get as much outta you as possible.

you could always just put an aftermarket tach on.

Good news...I got a call from toyota today and the service manager talked to me.bAt first he was talking about it costing $469 to replace but then he told me they were gonna fix it under warrenty for $75! Anyone in MA, go to LIA TOYOTA OF WILBRAHAM.

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are they gonna change the whole gauge or fix it? wut was the problem?

There gonna change the whole gauge cluster. He didnt tell me what the problem was, but im guessing I shorted something out.

Damn

ya i have had a sim problom and i went to toyota they said i messed up my warenty by putting in the gauges and it would cost 160 to fix it that isnt to bad i guess