Tachometer Stopped Working
- Thread starter BillyGT
- Start date
FrankBarba
Permanent Vacation
Is it only a matter of time before mine go out ? I keep my GT on a Battery Tender. If my guages do go out what are my alternatives, besides spending 8K for OEM gauges.
Mike's GT
GT Owner
I remember when my tach went out ,my ford dealer told me they had to commission the company that made the tach's to make more. I took my car back home and it took about 2 months before they called me to bring it in and have it replaced.
mike
mike
tpraceman
THEE GT OWNER
Maybe we can sticky this and treat it like the axle bolts.
A list of owners with gage issues then petition Ford to get the gage manufacture to help out.
Just a thought
A list of owners with gage issues then petition Ford to get the gage manufacture to help out.
Just a thought
Kayvan
GT Owner
- Jul 13, 2006
- 4,782
We have a survey up and it appears less than 40 have this issue; and 75% with not using the OEM charger....
I think on a % basis the numbers need to be much higher to have it flagged as a warranty/recall issue.
hollywoodstunts
GT Owner
That may be true, but you're assuming:
1.) that all GT owners are on this forum,
2.) all owners that have experienced failures have replied to this survey.
But you bring up a good point, what amount of failures would warrant Ford issuing a bulletin?
Believe it or not, the GT is my second American car. Everything else I have owned has been Japanese or German. Unfortunately, it is the first gauge failure I have ever encountered on any of the over 40 vehicles owned. And the first gauge I've ever heard of costing $3000.
If I sound frustrated, it's because I am.
ViperJoe
GT Owner
racelance
GT Owner
I know exactly how you feel! I'm going to reach out to a few of my Ford buddies to see if they can help me and if I hear anything helpful I'll be sure to post it here.
Very annoyed as well,
Lance
Kayvan
GT Owner
- Jul 13, 2006
- 4,782
True, but the axle bolts, A-arms...rose as issues under same #s, surveys, replies, postings, etc. under this forum.
Those #s, # posts have not happened yet.
Frustrating, very.
This entire thread gives me NIGHTMARES and I haven't bought my GT yet (need to build bigger garage first). From what I gather this CERTAINLY should be a recall item by Ford. Trouble shooting these issues is a major problem and after only a couple years of use with limited mileage and great care these failures should not be occuring at all.
I have been using a battery tender on my 96 Mark VIII LSC for over 9 years now and have not had one single issue and all of the gauges work perfectly by keeping it plugged in for months at a time. The battery is connected to the car while the battery tender is in use. I live in Illinois and the storage requirements are normally about 4 months or so. I also use a battery tender on my 69 RS/SS Camaro without any problems over the past 9 years as well. Granted you can't kill an old Chevy no matter what you try to do and this car still has the original wiring harness in it with no current drawdowns. With the old chevy, its easy to just disconnect the battery for storage and that is what I do with that one.
I wish everybody that has these problems that they quickly become resolved. I feel real bad for all of you. Gauge and electrical problems should only become evident after years and years of abuse as well as having the car sit outside in the elements and get beat up that way.
This is not right. C'mon Ford its time for you to step in. I would hate to think that I consider alternate choices of vehicles instead of buying the GT which I really want to do because of problems like this.
I have been using a battery tender on my 96 Mark VIII LSC for over 9 years now and have not had one single issue and all of the gauges work perfectly by keeping it plugged in for months at a time. The battery is connected to the car while the battery tender is in use. I live in Illinois and the storage requirements are normally about 4 months or so. I also use a battery tender on my 69 RS/SS Camaro without any problems over the past 9 years as well. Granted you can't kill an old Chevy no matter what you try to do and this car still has the original wiring harness in it with no current drawdowns. With the old chevy, its easy to just disconnect the battery for storage and that is what I do with that one.
I wish everybody that has these problems that they quickly become resolved. I feel real bad for all of you. Gauge and electrical problems should only become evident after years and years of abuse as well as having the car sit outside in the elements and get beat up that way.
This is not right. C'mon Ford its time for you to step in. I would hate to think that I consider alternate choices of vehicles instead of buying the GT which I really want to do because of problems like this.
I think that the failure rate is much higher than the stats we have collected here on the forum. Half or more of our business is from GT owners who, for one reason or another, don't frequent this forum so we don't capture these failures.
In my opinion, I wish that Ford would simply work out a repair program with Autometer. Autometer cites contractural conditions that prohibit them from doing any repairs of the gauges. Normally such contract language is prudent and reasonable. Ford doesn't want to have to compete with their own vendors for downstream parts fulfillment to the public. I'm OK with all that and the premise is fine. However, there is simply an unreasonable number of failures with these gauges and something needs to be done. Either give us a substantial discount on the MSRP of these gauges - or allow us an avenue to have them repaired at a reasonable cost. It is already a major inconvenience and a relatively high labor charge to do the gauge R&R and we don't need an unrealisticly high mark-up on the gauges themselves.
In my opinion, I wish that Ford would simply work out a repair program with Autometer. Autometer cites contractural conditions that prohibit them from doing any repairs of the gauges. Normally such contract language is prudent and reasonable. Ford doesn't want to have to compete with their own vendors for downstream parts fulfillment to the public. I'm OK with all that and the premise is fine. However, there is simply an unreasonable number of failures with these gauges and something needs to be done. Either give us a substantial discount on the MSRP of these gauges - or allow us an avenue to have them repaired at a reasonable cost. It is already a major inconvenience and a relatively high labor charge to do the gauge R&R and we don't need an unrealisticly high mark-up on the gauges themselves.
BlackICE
GT Owner
Empty Pockets
ex-GT Owner
VDO vs Autometer
Kevin considered the components in our tach to be of "poor quality" so he replaced it with VDO. He bench tested my updated guage and passed did a performance test. I just recently tested the guage with Ford's CPU interface computer hooked up and the gauges all worked with the exception of the repaired Tach. We checked ground and power and all looked fine. The problem is I need to verify the output with a digital frequency meter to check the Hz output. I hope to due this in the next week. This is getting rediculous and a frustration on my part.:bang Fortunately its winter and the GT is in storage.
Kevin considered the components in our tach to be of "poor quality" so he replaced it with VDO. He bench tested my updated guage and passed did a performance test. I just recently tested the guage with Ford's CPU interface computer hooked up and the gauges all worked with the exception of the repaired Tach. We checked ground and power and all looked fine. The problem is I need to verify the output with a digital frequency meter to check the Hz output. I hope to due this in the next week. This is getting rediculous and a frustration on my part.:bang Fortunately its winter and the GT is in storage.
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KMCBOSS
RED GT owner
See page 413-01-3 in the FGT shop manual for details on testing the instrument cluster gauges. Ed
hollywoodstunts
GT Owner
Great point.
Still I feel gauges in cars (not to mention $150,000 factory-flagship supercars), that are as well taken care of as our are, shouldn't be failing.
I feel terrible for BillyGT that is doing the troubleshooting for Ford.
Keeping fingers crossed Lance makes headway with the Ford contacts.
Kayvan, not sure what you trying to say:
"True, but the axle bolts, A-arms...rose as issues under same #s, surveys, replies, postings, etc. under this forum. Those #s, # posts have not happened yet. "
What numbers would dictate a warranty/recall?
What failure rates are acceptable?
If we assume there have been 200 failures, or 5%, would that be enough for a warranty/recall?
Dino
Ford GT Owner
Sorry, just caught up on this, my Tach died and needed replacing at 40 miles. Where can I add my tach failure to the survey?
Kayvan
GT Owner
- Jul 13, 2006
- 4,782
Basically, that even though not all GT owners are registered here; nor do all component failure register as votes or forum posts....the axle-bolt issue occured enought times, and enough unique posters raised or posted under this framework....that it became evident that a service/upgrade should be done.
I went back in Nov and counted every single unique post for this issue going back to 2005, and counted about 25 unique user posts; I pm'd those folks and put up the survey with <40 votes.
%'s
---
40 / 4008 cars
40 / 1000 registered members
40 / 500 active registered members?
40 / 200 clients of Forum vendor service providers
Not an actuary or warranty administrator...but i think 5-10% is reasonable. Though I believe liability comes into play for failures preceded by recall date, and financial reserves for future claims, not to mention service rebates to dealers; so its not just a parts/labor issue.
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As there has been no real alternative for repairing the gauges, we can be assured that Ford knows how big or small the issue is as they are the single source for replacements. It would be unlikely that gauges are replaced as part of an accident, so one can assume that the total number replaced is equal to the number of defective units.
Extreme281
Extreme281
- Aug 23, 2009
- 47
Got my car back up in running and prior to that i had never used the battery tender ,i decided to leave it hooked up while i performed some mods to my GT .When i finished i started my car and all my gauges were dead .I left the battery disconnected for about an hour and connected and they worked ,it seems that anybody that uses the tender has gauge problems and considering this plugs into the lighter it could be related ,just my 2cents and im never using the tender again