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Ford WindstarIntroduced in the mid-1990s, the front-wheel-drive Ford Windstar minivan campaigned with an emphasis on, and reputation for, safety. And in the hotly contested family minivan market of the time, that was an especially solid piece of ground to be on. As long as buyers didn't need to haul adults in back on a regular basis, the Windstar served a family's needs just fine.
Shortly after starting, all the gauges (fuel, speedometer, tac, heat) start spazzing out all at once, jumping to max & min values. After a minute, it stops and everything is fine.
Anyone seen this before? I was thinking it may be a short, but it does not happen every time, is only for a short period of time and is unpredictable.
I recently started having the same problem! Van runs fine although the guages freak out! I was thinking fuse or relay going bad due to it reacting to rough roads at times. Have you or anyone else found a solution?
Sign of a bad ground/intermittent ground connection. Suspect that before you troubleshoot power feeds.
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That happened to me this summer along with a couple of tricky starts. The van always ended up starting and running fine, the gauges would return and work properly. I had the battery tested at Advance Auto and it wouldn't even register, so I replaced the battery and haven't had the issue since. Hope it's that simple for you.
Same thing happened to me today. 2000 Windstar, 80,000 mi. Went to start. Gauges went nuts speedometer swings hard right buried at 120 and sticks there. I though I heard a grinding noise too. Quickly switched off and restarted, same deal. Started third time, no problem noticed. There have been some symtoms leading up to this. Last week I noticed the theft light would keep blinking as I drove. Or I could just restart and the light would go off as normally expected. When I start, the headlights briefly flick on because I see the beams flick on, on the garage door, and I never noticed that before.
I will tell you that I know my battery is due for replacement as it is still original equipment and tested bad 2 years ago, but I really haven't heard the turnover rate bog down at when starting.
Follow-up. on my wild gauges. Well after a few days here of this, the battery was about to croak. These last few days I noticed cranking speed very slow (plus battery had failed tests 2 years ago at dealer and Autozone, but I was going to what for battery to start really acting up. Replaced weak battery and all symtoms of wild gauges and flashing lights have disappeared.
In my case, I quess with a very weak battery, when turning over for starting, voltage drop is so severe that it causes all these symtoms. Replacing battery worked in my case. Of course if you have a short that drains your battery such that weak battery when starting, expect to see these again.
Update, since replacing my battery several months ago --
No more wild gauges, including some panel lights that acted funny.
Last edited by aching bones; 01-30-2008 at 01:27 PM.
Reason: Update definitely bad battery in my case
thank you all for posting, I have a 2000SEL with Gauges gone wild and the wife is terrified. I will be checking the battery tonight. ODd thing is this has happened 3 times in about 8 months very intermittent. So I am thinking a ground somewhere but no idea where to start. I did consider the VSS but the fact that fuel guage jumps as well has me scratching my head and thinking electrical. These jumping guages did not occur on start but while the van was running for 20-30 mins everytime, I am wondering if a voltage drop perhaps caused by alternator may be the case. I will post tomorrow upon checking the cables and the battery. help with where to start on faulty ground would be very much appreciated. My wife is driving me crazy with this and I know computers, not cars, Macs Preferably.
I'm working on a friends van right now that is suffering from several problems. We had a Check Engine light, a CMP sensor intermittent fault, no coolant temp showing on the dash, and a very happy speedo (moved around even when the vehicle was not moving).
I started cleaning electrical connectors under the hood and checking sensors. The coolant sensor was OK so I moved on to the next set of electrical connections. I found when I grabbed the main umbilical cable in the harness at the rear of the engine the dash readings would change. I took the connector apart and cleaned them with contact cleaner then sprayed them down with a silicone grease then put the connector back together. This solved the CEL, the CMP fault and the coolant reading on the dash.
It did not solve the crazy speedo. I disconnected the speed sensor connector and the speedo still acted the same. When the car is moving the speedo works fine. The tranny shifts fine. It only goes crazy when the car is sitting still. Revving the engine makes the speedo go up and down. I'm wondering if the problem is a chaffed wiring harness or a bad ground somewhere. I'm going to put a scope on the leads and see if there is noise or a ground fault that I can detect at the speed sensor end of the harness.
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Gauges gone wild!!! 
Guages gone wild!!! 
Linear Mode
