Earlier this week I was backing out of a gas station at night and my gauge cluster lights started flickering on and of. It stopped shortly after. Then tonight did it some more but usually under acceleration or breaking. Sometimes during gear changes. Any ideas??? Only thing I did differently around the same time as the symptoms started was having my phone charger and radar detector both plugged into the cigarette lighter with a dual plug splitter. Please help. It's gonna drive me crazy. Also I've been getting a brake lamp failure message even though all my lights are working fine.
Wop52
Have you removed both of those and retested your car?
If not that is the first step. Also brake lamp failure is either the switch itself above the brake pedal or a poor connection with the bulb and socket. Also if you are not using quality European bulbs the resistence is off and will cause this. Last but not least is the issue of the the entire housing making poor connection. More common on E46's but might be your case.
I think if your cluster is still causing issues after removing the draw on the circuit and also correcting the brake lamp issue you should pull the cluster out, use di-electric grease on the connectors plugged into the cluster and retest. If the problem persists then this would be the beginning of the hunt for the cold solder crack which is now appearing more and more often in our E36's. You choice is this is the case is to pull the cluster disassemble until you are at the PCB board level and look for the crack, resolder and reinstall or find a used cluster or buy a new one...
If not that is the first step. Also brake lamp failure is either the switch itself above the brake pedal or a poor connection with the bulb and socket. Also if you are not using quality European bulbs the resistence is off and will cause this. Last but not least is the issue of the the entire housing making poor connection. More common on E46's but might be your case.
I think if your cluster is still causing issues after removing the draw on the circuit and also correcting the brake lamp issue you should pull the cluster out, use di-electric grease on the connectors plugged into the cluster and retest. If the problem persists then this would be the beginning of the hunt for the cold solder crack which is now appearing more and more often in our E36's. You choice is this is the case is to pull the cluster disassemble until you are at the PCB board level and look for the crack, resolder and reinstall or find a used cluster or buy a new one...
This has gotten worse. Does it when I change gears. Sometimes they'll go off all together then I'll wiggle the gear shift and they come back on. Is there some kind of wiring by the gear shift that could be shorting out??? When the gauge cluster goes out so do all the interior lights. Climate control, window switches..... Etc.
Yep the window switches are in there, its not too hard to take the shift boot off and look around for a shorted wire.
Found two spliced wires under the shift boot that the electrical had slid off of. When they would touch everything was flickering. I reconnected them the correct way with some butt splices. No more flickering!!!! Yayyyy...... It was driving me crazy. Had a gs-t spyder eclipse that used to do the same thing only the tail light would flash on and off two. It was great when leaving the bar at 1:30 am. Like a big sign saying pull me over.
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