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speedometer jumping when car is not moving

R

r6dan

New CEG'er
Joined
Aug 10, 2004
Messages
18
Hi i am just getting ready to pull my car out of storage for this year and this problem occured. I had charged the battery as it was not in the car all winter and it barley had enough juice to start it. anyways the engine fired up nice and when i got in the car to check for the temp guage to get warmed up i noticed the speedo jumping up and down. i lightly pressed on the gas and the speedo went up to about 40 and when i let off it went back to bouncing around 0-5. anyways i figured the battery may need to be charged more and that may be the problem. maybe it could be the vss also. its a 99 svt also.
thanks for your help.
 
I had this happen when my alternator fuse blew and the battery was getting low. Check the voltage across your battery and see if it is where it should be, and then check it when its running. Should be right around 12v engine off, 14.5v engine on.
 
I'd vote vss problem, however it most certainly can be a result of having very little to no power.

Before my speedo went though (when my alt died) the car's lights had dimmed significantly, and I had lost the tachometer, abs, airbags (etc.) and a lot of the spark (couldn't give it much gas or it would bog down) before the speedo started to go (jumped wildly, pretty much what your describing)

maybe svt's are diff than my 96 gl (v6) but i kind of doubt it. A simple test to see if it is the battery/alt is just to drive it around a bit, if everything else electrical works fine (tach most noticeably i'd say) then i doubt your problems are due to a lack of power to the car as a whole.
 
You could try recharging the battery with a charger first, then run the car, or if the voltage at terminals is OK, run the car about an hour to recharge battery.
 
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