[Tech Note] - Does your Speedometer work but the odometer doesn't?

Is your mileage stuck on a number forever: No; it is NOT! We can fix it! The plastic gears that spin the odometer mechanism around have deteriorated to the point where they have just fallen apart. That's right, the gear teeth just fall off, the pinion gear usually only has the brass insert still on the driven shaft with no teeth. There are two kinds of speedometers that go into the BMW, Motometer and VDO. The Motometer unit has four gears to replacewhile the VDO unit only has three gears to replace.

The instrument cluster will need to be removed from the vehicle and the speedometer removed from the cluster. The gears are under a plastic cover on the side of the speedometer assembly. Care must be taken not to touch the front face of the instrument because finger prints will leave an impression on the surface. Also, be careful of the sensitive electronics that are attached to the speedometer head.

We can do it for you! We also bench test the unit with our special tester to verify that the unit is functioning normally before we install back into the car. We can test the speedometer/odometer by separately or installed in the cluster. The cost is less than half what it would cost to send the unit out for repair and/or replace it with a new unit. A VDO unit is about $275.00 complete. The Motometer unit is about $20.00 more or $295.00 complete.