First off, I'm new to chrystler vehicles, this is my first one ever so I'm very clueless, previously all I owned was chevys, but picked up this car for a good gas milage rig for cheap, anyways, on to my no doubt newbie question...

I've got a (10/96) 97 Plymouth Neon, I'm assuming plymouth and dodge neons are essentially the same vehicle, I may be wrong so sorry for that... But every now and then, the speedometer just drops to zero. Usually only happened when driving around the rough roads of town around 25mph. Mainly seemed to do it on bumps. And usually it'd start working again right away, so I assumed a bare wire or something boucing around under the hood. But the wires from the speed sensor are fine... And today it quit working going down the highway, naturally I got a little aggrivated and smacked the top of the dash board. The speedometer came back up to where it was supposed to be and then dropped back down, I then realized that the tach was "stuck" in the spot where it was when the speedo quit, didn't go to zero, just hung at like 3000 rpm... Afew more smacks of the dash and everything was back to normal.

Maybe kindof a stupid question, but does this sound like there could be a loose connection on the gauge cluster where the wiring harness plugs in? Or is there a common thing about the gauge cluster going out or perhaps signs of a PCM taking a crap on me? This has been the only problem with the car other than the "Door Ajar" light flickers on and off when going down the road. Don't know if the issues are linked or not, any suggestions?

Thanks in advance...

 

Try this. Theres a how to in the 1st gen section of this forum. heres the link. https://dodgeforum.com/m_179505/tm.htm

 

Awesome, that fixed everything but the door ajar light flickering, which I'm guessing is just a wore out switch, which is minor anyways. Thanks very much and sorry for the re-post.