Need car help!

[Raziaar]

Okay so I was driving the vehicle... it's a crappy old 1997 or so Ford Aerostar.

The entire way back home, I noticed that my speedometer wasn't working. First I noticed before I pulled out that the radio wasn't working, I couldn't see the time or the radio frequency on it... but also the speedometer stopped working.

What could be the cause of this? How would one fix it? I know nothing about cars.




"WHAT DO YOU MEAN I WAS GOING 60!? MY SPEEDOMETER HAS SAID I WAS GOING ZERO THIS WHOLE TIME!"

 

[VirusType2]

What is that, a digital speedometer?

The speedometer is usually mechanical/analog; in that case it would have nothing to do with your [strike]electrical[/strike] radio problem.

 

[Raziaar]

What is that, a digital speedometer?

The speedometer is usually mechanical/analog; in that case it would have nothing to do with your [strike]electrical[/strike] radio problem.

Well that's what I was thinking... but they happened at the exact same time.

It is a mechanical speedometer though I am certain of that. I just figured I'd throw in the radio issue because the vehicle has had electrical problems before... with the headlights going out while we were driving back home on the freeway. That was scary as shit. We fixed it though. Apparently aerostars and other ford vehicles have shitty electronics that burn out.

If it's a mechanical thing, how would I go about fixing it? Somewhere on the transmission?

 

[Hurricane]

I have this same problem with my dodge neon. It's a 1995, so it's around the same age as yours. Did it not work straight from the get-go, or did it start doing this a little bit after you were driving. It may just be that something didn't quite fire off right during ignition and you'll just have to try re-starting the car. If that doesn't work, just give the glass over the speedometer a firm tap. This usually fixes mine for the duration of the drive.

 

[Ridge]

Check your battery connections.

My old pontiac, one day, while doing about 5mph down a side street, my speedometer climbed up to 60mph, then the car died and it fell over to the high speed side...

Turned out my battery cables were loose. Tightened them up, started the car, and it was fine...had to get up to abour 25mph for the speedometer to fix itself, though

 

[Robbo]

My car is a ford from 1997 and all kinds of stuff is starting to go wrong, I had a period of three weeks where I had to take it to the mechanic 5 times for various stuff. Stuff on cars this age is just getting old so starts to break.
In my experience they're probably unrelated

 

[Raziaar]

We looked at the fuse box and found one of the fuses had blown. We replaced it and the speedometer and radio and stuff works again.

If our speedometer is mechanical and controlled by the transmission, why is it connected up with the electrical like that?

I have this same problem with my dodge neon. It's a 1995, so it's around the same age as yours. Did it not work straight from the get-go, or did it start doing this a little bit after you were driving. It may just be that something didn't quite fire off right during ignition and you'll just have to try re-starting the car. If that doesn't work, just give the glass over the speedometer a firm tap. This usually fixes mine for the duration of the drive.

Well I was driving my brother to work this morning and it worked fine. But the entire trip back home it wasn't working. I did tap the glass while i was driving but that didn't do anything. Didn't really feel the need to pull over and restart the car until after I got home, after which we checked the fuse box anyway.

Check your battery connections.

My old pontiac, one day, while doing about 5mph down a side street, my speedometer climbed up to 60mph, then the car died and it fell over to the high speed side...

Turned out my battery cables were loose. Tightened them up, started the car, and it was fine...had to get up to abour 25mph for the speedometer to fix itself, though

Haha. I don't know what is worse... my speedometer not working at all, or it being entirely incorrect on the high side.

My car is a ford from 1997 and all kinds of stuff is starting to go wrong, I had a period of three weeks where I had to take it to the mechanic 5 times for various stuff. Stuff on cars this age is just getting old so starts to break.
In my experience they're probably unrelated

These aerostars especially seem to have a lot of problems with electrical and stuff. Like I said in my OP, we originally had the headlights fail while we were driving down the highway 60 mph at night on a curving overpass. Scary stuff on a low light level night. And then they kept flickering a little.

One of the power windows(no manual handle either) stopped working as well and recently started up again.

Battery is all fine... that time when the headlights burnt out, it was apparently the cause of a super hot electrical connection that had melted through the wires. There were some recalls on these things apparently for fires, so we were lucky ours didn't catch on fire.

 

[VirusType2]

These aerostars especially seem to have a lot of problems with electrical and stuff. Like I said in my OP, we originally had the headlights fail while we were driving down the highway 60 mph at night on a curving overpass. Scary stuff on a low light level night. And then they kept flickering a little.

One of the power windows(no manual handle either) stopped working as well and recently started up again.

Battery is all fine... that time when the headlights burnt out, it was apparently the cause of a super hot electrical connection that had melted through the wires. There were some recalls on these things apparently for fires, so we were lucky ours didn't catch on fire.

Fair enough, but all cars have failures, especially cars that are 20 years old, like yours.

Headlights fading out and then failing while driving is a bad alternator.

Also, most cars have several recalls. Think of it like a patch on a video game. You drive it to a dealership and they fix it for free.
The worst is when it's a safety risk. That's when everyone hears about it too.

 

[_Z_Ryuken]

If our speedometer is mechanical and controlled by the transmission, why is it connected up with the electrical like that?

Modern vehicles feed various speed informations (ground speed, engine speed, drive shaft speed) to help the ECU/TCU make informed decisions.

The speed sensor unit itself is mechanically driven, but since an electrical signal is required from it the manufacturer creates less of a mess by making the speedo read it's signal from the ECU, or maybe a relay.

 

[Raziaar]

Modern vehicles feed various speed informations (ground speed, engine speed, drive shaft speed) to help the ECU/TCU make informed decisions.

The speed sensor unit itself is mechanically driven, but since an electrical signal is required from it the manufacturer creates less of a mess by making the speedo read it's signal from the ECU, or maybe a relay.

Ahhhh, okay.

 

[15357]

Have you tried pouring sugar down the gas tank?

 

[Raziaar]

Have you tried pouring sugar down the gas tank?

Well, my backup plan and theory was that my vehicle was diabetic and its gasoline sugar level was low, and so I was going to get around to trying that!

 

[Dinnesch]

There is only 1 solution:

Spoiler

cars suck

 

[15357]

Well, my backup plan and theory was that my vehicle was diabetic and its gasoline sugar level was low, and so I was going to get around to trying that!

I was going to say don't do it, but you've convinced me.

 

[Dekstar]

I searched for you Raz!
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/car-driving-safety/safety-regulatory-devices/speedometer2.htm
That's how a speedometer works. Future reference and all that.

 

[Raziaar]

I searched for you Raz!
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/car-driving-safety/safety-regulatory-devices/speedometer2.htm
That's how a speedometer works. Future reference and all that.

Thanks bro. :E

 

[Mr-Fusion]

I was immediately going to say blown fuse. But you found it out anyway.

/lost the opportunity to be useful
/sigh

 

[Raziaar]

I was immediately going to say blown fuse. But you found it out anyway.

/lost the opportunity to be useful
/sigh

Sorry man.

The damn passenger side window is failed again. The process starts anew!

 

[Raziaar]

God dammit.

So when that passenger window failed earlier today when I was picking my brother up from work... I joked, "It begins anew..." because that's how the problems first started before.

I drove to the grocery store tonight and sure enough... speedometer stops working. My odometer(LCD) is flickering rapidly and the radio is out again.

I'm fairly sure now there's a short somewhere. Fuse wasn't the problem, it was a symptom of the problem.

****.