Hey Bimmer fans!!

I recently bought a BMW 525i of 1990. It was working fine until a few days back and suddenly one fine morning as I keyed in the ignition to start my Beast, any of the gauges won't show any activity.

The Temperature gauge, Fuel Gauge, Odometer, Engine speed Gauge as well as the economy gauge would'nt start to show any reading.

Steps I took:

# I checked all the fuse in the fuse box (1 - 29) and found that all of them are OK.
# I removed each and every fuse and then started putting in back, I put the fuse no. 1, 17 and 20 first because they correspond to the Instrument Cluster and the OnBoard Computer. But nothing showed up.
# Then I put the remaining, but as I put the fuse 10 and 11 my KMS gauge showed me the reading and the fuel gauge also turned up.
# Now I started my car and could see that the temperature gauge also started to move upwards, everything seemed to be working fine. But as I turned off the ignition, the display won't go off, so I unplugged the fuse 20 and then it switched off.

After that I tried again starting the car but nothing seems to be working, I did the whole exercise (as above) but nothing works now.

What could be the cause?

Any suggestions or advice would be great!!!


Thanks.

Saabir.

Could just be dirty contact points in the fuse holder.

I would say you have a logic board problem. Is the speedo head and rpm gauge functioning? I've had replaced many logic boards behind the cluster but the speedo head and rpm gauge are wired in differently.

Today morning I noticed that somehow my RPM gauge and the Speedo shown some activity and then started working. Now it is the Temperature gauge, Fuel Gauge, the economy gauge, the KM reader and the messaging part are not working.


Any help.

Saabir.

Check out this link. http://www.bmwe34.net/e34main/maintenance/electrical/capacitors.htm

You could go to a mechanic and put in a rebuilt logic board, it's half the price of a new BMW service/part. The last time I was having problems like this and found a possible solution. I went out of town for a week and came back to find a dead battery. I call AAA for a boost and when it started the instrument cluster came back to life. If you disconnect the battery for a day and reconnect see what happens..Just have your radio code handy if you disconnect the battery.

Hey dovstar,

What is that "AAA for boost" that you have mentioned? It seems as if a size of a battery. Is there any battery inside the instrument cluster??


Your inputs would be of great help.

Thanks.

Saabir.

triple a "AAA" is a sort of like a emergency road side service.

There are no batteries inside the instrument cluster. Find a good, honest mechanic.