1997 Pontiac Grand Am instrument gages

POPSROBERTS

MEMBER
1997 PONTIAC GRAND AM
4 CYL
FWD
AUTOMATIC
14,000 MILES

Gages flickering on/off what could be wrong, and if I need to relace the cluster how do you do that.

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 AT 8:59 AM

7 Replies

BUDDYCRAIGG

MECHANIC
2,262 POSTS

I'm sorry, but could you explain yourself a bit better?

Do you mean the lights that illuminate the gauges.

Or are all of the gauges dropping off and then coming back on

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Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 AT 10:37 AM

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The gauges along with the fault indicator lights all are doing the off/on thing at no given interval.

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Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 AT 6:44 PM

BUDDYCRAIGG

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2,262 POSTS

I don't know of a common problem with them.
Do all of the gauges go to max and the warning lights come on?

Or do all of the gauges drop to zero

and when do the warning lights come on?

I'm asking more questions to get a better idea if possibly the ignition switch is barely going in to the "bulb test" mode while you are driving.
Or
if the computer in the cluster is bad.

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Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 AT 7:05 PM

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Well the speedometer, tach, temp, and gas will be registring nothing and just randomly all jump to some point and rhen back to nothing. The warning lights all blink. Flicker on/off at the same time the gauges are doing their jumping around, best description I can give.

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Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 AT 10:59 PM

BUDDYCRAIGG

MECHANIC
2,262 POSTS

I have looked at the schematics 3 times throughout the night, so I could be 90% sure before I responded.

I don't see anything that could cause it other than a bad processor in the instrument cluster.

If you're feeling really lucky, you could unplug and then replug in the connectors a few times over an over again to make sure you have a good clean connection.

And do the same with the 10 amp fuse for the instruments in the fuse box.

But I really think it's in the cluster.

Good luck