PontiacBonnevilleClub.com

Hey All,

Took the '94 out for some fuel, and found that my dash has stopped working. Gauges don't sweep when turning key, and are all stuck (except for speedometer & heads-up) un-moving.

Cannot find any bad fuses anywhere under the dash. My wife tells me that she saw the gauges sweep while driving the other day. Making me think that I might have a flaky connection somewhere. But where do I look to start??? Would appreciate any ideas any of you might be able to share. I cannot find any other systems within the car that are not working, so it seems to be just the dash, compass, DIC. The gauges still light up when the headlights are turned on, so it's like the sending units or something. HELP!

Seems that the trip Odometer resets itself when the dash comes back to life. Had a similar situation with our Blazer this past winter. Had to replace the instrument cluster to solve that.
Worked properly when i got in the car this morning, but half-way to work, everything froze up and went unresponsive.


Any history of the instrument clusters going bad on the Bonnevilles?

TDS-94SSEi wrote:Seems that the trip Odometer resets itself when the dash comes back to life. Had a similar situation with our Blazer this past winter. Had to replace the instrument cluster to solve that.
Worked properly when i got in the car this morning, but half-way to work, everything froze up and went unresponsive.


Any history of the instrument clusters going bad on the Bonnevilles?

Could be an issue with the grounding bars under the carpet in the passenger compartment. I had some instrument cluster weirdness on my '95 and that was the issue.

I suspect the '94 has the same or very similar design.

michaelbsc wrote:

Could be an issue with the grounding bars under the carpet in the passenger compartment. I had some instrument cluster weirdness on my '95 and that was the issue.

I suspect the '94 has the same or very similar design.

Thanks for the response. That would make a little sense if it were the culprit. Will try and access that ground and see if there's anything that looks suspicious. I appreciate you sharing your experience, I would agree that the 95 should be very similar to my 94. I've read some posts on the forum where the ground was responsible for some other problems for various members.

I to have a 94 SSEi with gauge problems I have cleaned the grounds in the engine compartment, located and cleaned the ground buss on the drivers side with no resolution the the gauge problem. I am in the process of cleaning the ground bus on the passenger side hoping that I won't need to pull the dash! I have pictures posted on some my earlier posts of the ground buss. When the gauges stop working so does the auto compass along with the driver information area.

Hoganct wrote:I to have a 94 SSEi with gauge problems I have cleaned the grounds in the engine compartment, located and cleaned the ground buss on the drivers side with no resolution the the gauge problem. I am in the process of cleaning the ground bus on the passenger side hoping that I won't need to pull the dash! I have pictures posted on some my earlier posts of the ground buss. When the gauges stop working so does the auto compass along with the driver information area.

Yup, compass and DIC stop working. idiot lights still seem to work, at least the ones i can controll like trac Control, etc. They will all light up at start, but sometimes the gauge sweep just does not happen. given that the trip odometer resets itself each time the gauges come back, i'm really starting to suspect a failing instrument cluster. I scored a gauge cluster from a 93 SSEi at the salvage yard a couple weeks ago, and wanted to spend some time poking around in there to see what might be user-serviceable, as online research has located a couple places that refurbish clusters, and it appears that a lot of their work is simply re-soldering things. Which would seem to make some sense to me, as they all still funtion as they are supposed to, when they do start up. it really seems as if the gauges just are not getting whatever electronic signal it takes to make them move. The illumination when headlights are on still works independently of function.

They will lose signal occasionally while driving, with no apparent cause, and no effect on driveability other than not having any data displayed. Takes some of the fun out of driving teh car, as I don't like to push it too hard not knowing what is going on with temp, oil pressure etc.

TDS-94SSEi wrote:

Hoganct wrote:I to have a 94 SSEi with gauge problems I have cleaned the grounds in the engine compartment, located and cleaned the ground buss on the drivers side with no resolution the the gauge problem. I am in the process of cleaning the ground bus on the passenger side hoping that I won't need to pull the dash! I have pictures posted on some my earlier posts of the ground buss. When the gauges stop working so does the auto compass along with the driver information area.

Yup, compass and DIC stop working. idiot lights still seem to work, at least the ones i can controll like trac Control, etc. They will all light up at start, but sometimes the gauge sweep just does not happen. given that the trip odometer resets itself each time the gauges come back, i'm really starting to suspect a failing instrument cluster. I scored a gauge cluster from a 93 SSEi at the salvage yard a couple weeks ago, and wanted to spend some time poking around in there to see what might be user-serviceable, as online research has located a couple places that refurbish clusters, and it appears that a lot of their work is simply re-soldering things. Which would seem to make some sense to me, as they all still funtion as they are supposed to, when they do start up. it really seems as if the gauges just are not getting whatever electronic signal it takes to make them move. The illumination when headlights are on still works independently of function.

They will lose signal occasionally while driving, with no apparent cause, and no effect on driveability other than not having any data displayed. Takes some of the fun out of driving teh car, as I don't like to push it too hard not knowing what is going on with temp, oil pressure etc.

my temp and oil gauge doesnt work at all i might switch clusters to see if thats the problem

fbodyNATION wrote: my temp and oil gauge doesnt work at all i might switch clusters to see if thats the problem

Used clusters from the salvage yard up here cost me $16-24, so yeah, it would seem worth a try for you, if you can get one cheap enough. Since both of those are not working, problem is probably not just a sending unit or something.

Guys, i have same situation. But DIC is dead, while the compass is working. What could it be? Even used cluster costs a lot for me, about 100$ and delivery. The only way is to fix it. How...?