1997 Ford Aspire > Ford Aspire Speedometer Inop
One cold morning on 15 November 2004 I drove to work without warming my car first. I found I couldn't drive more than 30 mph on most of the trip because the speedometer needle kept whining and going nuts all over the dial.
Let me quote another Web site on the Ford Aspire speedometer.
Ford has had some problems with their speedometers. The 1993-1997 Windstar, Taurus, Sable, Ranger, Escort, Tracer mechanical speedometers are notorious for problems.
The symptoms are:
- They bounce wildly above 30 – 40 m.p.h.
- A squeak behind the dashboard.
- Odometer works.
If the speedometer only bounces at low speeds, you may be able to lubricate the inner speedometer cable. If it is at higher speeds, the speedometer is bad. The bearings in the speedo head go bad. There is no quick fix if this is the case.
And let's not leave out "Aspire" to the model list. In my case, the bounce/squeak is intense when the speedometer is cold. The odometer is okay, although the trip meter sticks from time to time.
Instructions on how to replace the instrument panel are at the Ford Aspire Speedometer Inop page at About.com. The images from this page come out of Chilton's Ford Aspire Repair Manual (ISBN 0801989728), which gives more detailed instructions on pages 6-19 to 6-22.
Since that time my instrument panel is in need of replacement again: The speedometer needle when wild again in the bitter cold of December 2007, and then it fell off.