How hard is it to fix a speedo?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Zip
  • Start date Start date

Zip

Zip

Soldato
Joined
26 Jun 2005
Posts
20,224
Location
Australia
Ive found a car thats not to expensive but the problem with it is the speedo doesnt work.
How hard would it be to fix or how much should it cost to be fixed?

The car is a 1987 Toyota MR2
 
not difficult but very time consuming. You have to attach the cable to the engine, sometime harder than you imagine. You have to run it though the bulk head, also have to take the dash appart to get to the back of the spedo. Thats if its cable.
 
AcidHell2 said:
not difficult but very time consuming. You have to attach the cable to the engine, sometime harder than you imagine. You have to run it though the bulk head, also have to take the dash appart to get to the back of the spedo. Thats if its cable.

Im no mechanic and that sounds complicated so how much should i expect to pay for that to be done?
 
Probably 25 quid per hour labour minimum :( most likely more if it's a main dealer type garage. 1 - 2 hours work I guess, depending if the dash is a pain to remove.
 
jumpy said:
Probably 25 quid per hour labour minimum :( most likely more if it's a main dealer type garage.

Look at his location mate - prices in AUS$ would probably be closer to the mark :)

Changing speedo cables isn't all that difficult, but it can be very time consuming on some cars.
 
JRS said:
Look at his location mate - prices in AUS$ would probably be closer to the mark :)

Changing speedo cables isn't all that difficult, but it can be very time consuming on some cars.

UK prices are fine, the shouldnt be extreemly different. I just dont want to buy a car and spend a lot more money on it to fix the fault
 
Well it means that the car could have done X,000+ miles more than the odo is displaying, which could be bad if the car is advertised with lowish miles and it's infact done a lot more.
 
Last edited:
As said, I'd want to know how long the speedo has been out of action because almost certainly it'll have stopped clocking miles.

Also - that's been SC'd. So - who did it? Is there any warranty? How many miles SC'd has it done? Are the belts ok? Any leaks? Any unusual noises?

It's clearly been driven - hence the clutch replacement. First thing SC'ing does is kill your tyres and clutch.
 
Zip, just a little word of advice. It's an 19 y/o car, and a sports car at that. I personally couldn't justify getting a car that old unless I..

a) could afford to pay someone to fix it, a car that old will be prone to going wrong and needing a decent amount of attention. If I had that kind of money I would buy a better car in the first place.

b) could fix the things that will go wrong myself and keep it running without encureing large machanic bills.

It's not going to be cheap to run and keep on the road, I'm guessing after your comment about changeing the speedo cable your not to keen on doing things to the car yourself/don't have the experiance to.

Nothing against you or the car but it could be costly.
 
Nice choice of car, looks like a decent example (At least once you remove that awful steering wheel, the shopping list and get the splitter resprayed) and shouldn't have suffered from too much rust unlike many examples over here.

merlin said:
Toyota did not SC that car. :p

Obviously I can't vouch for that exact car but Toyota did make supercharged ones, they were available in Japan and the US at least (don't know about Aus/NZ off hand).

Obviously some cars have been aftermarket converted but most have just had an S/C engine swapped in rather than any kind of dodgy bolt-on conversion. The fact that that car has S/C clocks suggests it's either an original S/C or a reasonably thorough conversion though.

As for the speedo cable. I know the gearbox end is simple enough to get to and reconnect but I've not taken the dash end apart so can't comment on that part.
 
Back
Top Bottom