Problem with guages.

toyotatech · January 17, 2004

It has been very cold here in New Hampshire. Started my truck(03 1500 HD) and none of the guages did anything. Everything else worked, message center, directionals, etc. I tried cycling the key and warming the truck up,nothing worked.

I pulled the fuses for the cluster and put them back and everything has been fine for three days now. Has anyone else had any problems with their guages.

Hullie · January 20, 2004

Hey man,

I'm also in NH and the exact same thing happened to me last week. They were dead, then one day they worked, then didn't work again. By the time I had my appointment, they were working again. They of course couldn't find anything except that there was a service bulletin saying that the gauge cluster should get reprogrammed to fix this type of problem. They reprogrammed and so far so good. Of course, it hasn't been as cold, so we'll see.

I say take it to the dealer and tell them to reprogram the dash. I can get the info out of my truck about which service bulletin it was if you'd like.

Brett

toyotatech · January 21, 2004

That would be great if you could give me more info on the tsb. Thank You.

THE BIGPUNN · January 21, 2004

wow! mine too just yesterday. i think it was the coldest day of the year, truck sat all day and when i started it, no guages! about an hour later i restarted it and they worked.

Hullie · January 21, 2004

03-08-49-020

That's the TSB about the gauges having to be reprogrammed. Mine have not failed since (4 days), but it hasn't been as cold since either. I got a good explaination from a guy on this list and it sounds like this should be a permanent fix.

Brett

Super Chevy · January 26, 2004

Great! First really cold day and the gauge cluster dies. No Speedo, No Tach, No Oil Pressure, No Temp, No Voltage and No Gas...but you better believe the ODOMETER STILL WORKS, IMAGINE THAT! How are you supposed to drive a truck in this condition?

Talk to my brother-in-law (GM Mechanic) says several pick-ups and Tahoe's have this problem...yes there is a third generation reprogram (GM's not calling it a TSB yet as far as he knows its a PI...I believe is what he called it)...it has only solved the problem about half the time and customers are not happy (any big shots from GM reading this?).

GM is aware of the problem and still working on a permanent fix at this time. I will call him at work tomorrow to get latest information available from GM and post here.

You would think that GM would test 4WD trucks in the environments they are intended to operate (Very Cold Weather in this case). The number of failures would indicate GM failed to do something so fundamental...which puzzles and disappoints me.