Speedometer stops working and extra lights come on

[johnsr11]

The speedometer on my 2000 323i has been acting weird lately. The speedometer and mpg gauges will stop working and then the abs, brake, and dsc lights will all come on and stay on. At one point when the speedometer started working, all the lights went off. After that though the lights stayed on when the speedometer would start working. I used the reset function in the cluster and everything worked for about a day, and the lights were off. Now however, I am back in the same situation with the lights being on and speedometer not working. When I reset the cluster this time nothing happened. Any suggestions? Is my cluster going bad? or is there a bad connection somewhere?

[telijah]

I think a bad speed sensor can cause these symptoms, but not 100%...

[Jetblack2000Ci]

When those three lights come on (abs, dsc, brake) together I think I read that there is a malfunction with the DSC unit. I'm just guessing but if the speedometer doesn't work either I guess something is wrong with your wheel speed sensors. Maybe the two are related? We need the experts to chime in.

EDIT:

Fermunky beat me to it lol

[kawracerx]

I have an 03 325xi and I have exact same problem.very intermitant though maybee one out of every 20 times I start it and only on start up never while actually driving down road, and well only happen first 10 seconds after start up then goes back to normal.had checked for codes and nothing.

[johnsr11]

With some more looking into the situation it looks like it is going to be a bad wheel sensor. I am going to test them tomorrow and will let you guys know what I come up with! I appreciate the input and advice, definitely helped.

[danewilson77]

.............I am going to test them tomorrow and will let you guys know what I come up with!

How are you going to accomplish this?

[johnsr11]

When I was looking online it said that you can test with a volt meter to see if the sensor is bad or not. It is supposed to be running app 1.4 - 1.8v, if it reads mv or 0v then it is bad. That is what I found somewhere on these forums through google. I guess if it doesn't work then we will find out.

[Tymm]

I´m having the same problem at the moment and everyone is telling me that it is the rear left speed sensor I looked on e-bay and it even said on there and gave pictures of the 3 lights on and no speedo, but before I order it I´m going to check all the connections on the control unit thing well that is as soon as I find out where it is!

[tsk]

An extra addendum. I've seen cheaper sensors available (half price or so). I've also heard these can have issues and I'd stick with the OEM version. I got mine from a site-supported vendor: RM European and they weren't too horrible.

I was unable to clean my sensors because they all had to be hammered/drilled out in tiny pieces. From my experience I can't imagine getting them out in one piece and not doing damage either. For that matter, it was hard enough for me to put them back in.