Partially Dead Instrument Cluster

[Devil Inc]

OK so I let my car warm up to thaw it out, everything was working when I got in the car to leave. I idled it up to back out of my parking space and everything on the cluster went dead, but the car was still running. I'm lost I've checked all the fuses in the fuse box, tapped on the top of the dash, everything I can think of. I let it warm up for about 10-15 minutes w/ heat on 3rd setting. The speedo works but acts like it is off, it felt like it was showing that I was going faster than I really was. I just did the 2.7i swap and everything has worked fine for about 5 days now, so I don't thing that has anything to do with it. Other than I haven't had a chance to wire in the tach, yet.

[Devil Inc]

I went and looked at it again in a little better light and found fuse #10 was blown. The fuse blew out at the very bottom, barely noticeble to the naked eye. The ETM I have shows that a 7.5 amp fuse is used but the fuse I pulled was 10 amp. Would I be better off plugging a 7.5 back in and see if it blows again, or replace with a 10 or slightly higher? I know that generally you shouldn't use a higher amperage fuse, because or small wire gauge and sensitive equipment attached to the circuits. I mean I want it to be as trouble-free as possible, but I don't need/want the car to catch fire.

[StereoInstaller1]

2.5A of fuse rating is not gonna make a huge difference, but you might want to find out what the hell is going on there.

Did you look at "FUSE DETAILS" on the BMW Electrical Guide? I can't remember what #10 runs.

Oh yeah, that thing with the tiny break in fuse? THAT right there is why I tell people to use a testlight, not your eyeballs. Fuses have gotten shittier...all new fuses are "Hecho en China" and suck balls.

[Devil Inc]

You know I even had a test light sitting on the back floor of the car.

[Devil Inc]

Well It happened to me again this morning, but I noticed it did it as soon as I put the car in reverse. Is it possible the sensor that detects when the transmission is in reverse is bad or sloppy shifter pinching a wire or something?

[metalix1021]

I had the same problem when putting it into reverse. I disconnected the wire under the shift boot and no longer have the problem. But....I no longer have any reverse lights either.

[jrobie79]

same thing happened to me, the wires under the shift boot were torn and shorting out, so i just got in there with a soldering iron and fixed it up. havent had the problem since. same reason my backup lights werent working either.