I've owned my 1999 V6 from new. It now has just over 100,000 miles on it. Lately I've been noticing something weird. The gauges will occasionally rotate all the way to the peg, then back to normal when I start the engine. This began to happen recently, within the last 1,000 miles or so.

Is this something to worry about?

Thanks in advance, folks!

 

I can answer this with complete competance!!!

Replace the battery, when the guages do that it means that while the starter is turning it s taking ALL the juice the battery has to give. When power returns, the guages think that the power got disconnected and then reconnected, and reset themselves.

Check the battery, if no problem with that, theck the alternator / belts, that problem is always something in the battery / charging curcuit!

Hope this helps

James

 

Thanks, JG. Makes sense, still have OE battery in place. Winter's coming, even to Alabama.

 

Glad I could help!

 

i wondered what that was cause it used to happen in my moms old eddie bauer expedition.

 

when the gauges jump all the way to the right (all of them) its due to the car lost power, if you unbolt your battery cables and put them back on and start the car thsi will happen. It may just be the gauges or the mechanism that controls this but that is why it happends.

 

UPDATE: The OE battery continued to weaken after I posted my question. I bought a new battery last week, and the car cranks M-U-C-H better now.

 

Nice It should sort out the gauge problem as well!

 

I had a similar problem on a Ford Taurus, turns out it was a bad transmission speed sensor. Unfortuantely you have to drop the transmission pan to get to the speed sensor. On my 84 Mustang I had a similar problem but in that case it was the speedo cable.