Gmt900 Cluster Failure

Mudddawg · May 11, 2009

Hi All,

Been a while since I have been in the Forum. I was just wondering if anyone has had a problem with the gauge cluster in the gmt900 trucks. Over the weekend my fuel, tach, and speedo died while going down the road. They came back after shutting the truck off and restarting a couple of times. Went to the dealer this morning and they said they could not find or see any evidence of this problem. Funny thing is onstar shot me an e-mail saying I needed to get my truck to the dealer. How the h#ll does onstar see this issue but the dealership does not? My tranny has been shifting funny lately. Could this be realted? My truck is an 08 rcsb 4x4, 5.3, 4 speed auto.

P71_CrownVic · May 11, 2009

How the h#ll does onstar see this issue but the dealership does not?

That's a good question. Did OnStar say why you needed to get your truck to the dealer?

Crazy Canuck · May 11, 2009

How the h#ll does onstar see this issue but the dealership does not?

That's a good question. Did OnStar say why you needed to get your truck to the dealer?

That's a good questions as well. Try pressing the Onstar button. They will tell you to start the truck, and should be able to diagnose the problem over the wire. I had a fuel pressure sending unit go on mine and they pretty much told me that over the phone.

davecast09 · May 11, 2009

The same exact thing has happend to me in mine. Dealer had the same answer too.... hasn't happened since so it's probably just a matter of time. At the time it happened I pulled over turned off the truck, restarted and the same thing gauges were dead, went through the gears, same thing. Finshed my drive into work gauges dead, tried again at lunch everything worked fine.

brims · May 11, 2009

I will add my name to this list. I was driving my truck last year sometime and the entire dash "locked up" coulnd't hear the turn signal click, the radio didn't work, the tach was stuck at 650 the speedo stuck at 0, no turn signal indicators, nothing. Called the dealer, told me if it's not happening now, don't worry about it. Hasn't happened since then. Had to turn off and restart the truck a couple of times to get it working again.

EDIT: I think it happened November last year, whenever the heated washer fluid recall was happening, I called the week before that was to start.

Zembonez · May 11, 2009

This must just be a glitch in the control module somewhere. At about 1000 miles mine did a similar thing. The cluster stopped responding at all and trans acted like it was not going to shift out of second. I pulled over, shut it off, and it came back to life and all was good. That was about 12K ago and never another issue.

As much as these vehicles are computer controlled these days, I'm surprised this kind of thing doesn't happen more often. Much like home computers, a stray signal can confuse them. Any sort of outside interference could cause a malfunction. As reliable as they are 99+ percent of the time, they must be pretty well designed.

EDIT: If this was the case with yours, the dealer won't "see" anything. They don't have a magic crystal ball there. Onstar probably got the signal when it happened.

Mudddawg · May 11, 2009

This must just be a glitch in the control module somewhere. At about 1000 miles mine did a similar thing. The cluster stopped responding at all and trans acted like it was not going to shift out of second. I pulled over, shut it off, and it came back to life and all was good. That was about 12K ago and never another issue.

As much as these vehicles are computer controlled these days, I'm surprised this kind of thing doesn't happen more often. Much like home computers, a stray signal can confuse them. Any sort of outside interference could cause a malfunction. As reliable as they are 99+ percent of the time, they must be pretty well designed.

EDIT: If this was the case with yours, the dealer won't "see" anything. They don't have a magic crystal ball there. Onstar probably got the signal when it happened.

Thanks for the help guys. I also know that they dont have a "crystal ball". But since onstar is owned by GM(or so the web site says) I thought maybe that onstar could relay the signal or info to the dealer of choice upon request. They should for what the truck costs nowdays. Instead you hear "We can't duplicate the problem". This is Bulls$#t

Mudddawg · May 11, 2009

How the h#ll does onstar see this issue but the dealership does not?

That's a good question. Did OnStar say why you needed to get your truck to the dealer?

Due to the cluster failure.

Zembonez · May 11, 2009

This must just be a glitch in the control module somewhere. At about 1000 miles mine did a similar thing. The cluster stopped responding at all and trans acted like it was not going to shift out of second. I pulled over, shut it off, and it came back to life and all was good. That was about 12K ago and never another issue.

As much as these vehicles are computer controlled these days, I'm surprised this kind of thing doesn't happen more often. Much like home computers, a stray signal can confuse them. Any sort of outside interference could cause a malfunction. As reliable as they are 99+ percent of the time, they must be pretty well designed.

EDIT: If this was the case with yours, the dealer won't "see" anything. They don't have a magic crystal ball there. Onstar probably got the signal when it happened.

Thanks for the help guys. I also know that they dont have a "crystal ball". But since onstar is owned by GM(or so the web site says) I thought maybe that onstar could relay the signal or info to the dealer of choice upon request. They should for what the truck costs nowdays. Instead you hear "We can't duplicate the problem". This is Bulls$#t

I do agree that there should have been some sort of comunication between the two, Al I'm saying is if it is a stray or random event like mine apparently was, the dealer wouldn't have anything to actually look at after the fact. It would be a guessing game with about a thousand possible answers.

jbossert · June 20, 2011

Hi All,

Been a while since I have been in the Forum. I was just wondering if anyone has had a problem with the gauge cluster in the gmt900 trucks. Over the weekend my fuel, tach, and speedo died while going down the road. They came back after shutting the truck off and restarting a couple of times. Went to the dealer this morning and they said they could not find or see any evidence of this problem. Funny thing is onstar shot me an e-mail saying I needed to get my truck to the dealer. How the h#ll does onstar see this issue but the dealership does not? My tranny has been shifting funny lately. Could this be realted? My truck is an 08 rcsb 4x4, 5.3, 4 speed auto.

Hello. I have this exact problem, right down to the tranny shifting problem when the cluster issue is acting up. Did you ever get this problem resolved? If so, how? I could really use a recommendation here. Thanks!