no tach, no gear indicator, then went away

hu5ker555 · Post by **hu5ker555** » 15 Dec 2025, 08:44

2008 S60 2.5T 252k

Last week all of a sudden while driving, the tachometer shut down, my gear indicator was " - ", and the car just felt weird. Shifted strange, sounded off. All kinds of codes popped up.

Turned it off, let it sit for a while, cleared all codes, and it's been running fine ever since.

Anyone experienced something like this before?

ignatz · Post by **ignatz** » 15 Dec 2025, 10:39

Do you remember the codes? It might point to something that something that controls the tach, gear indicator and wonky shifting. You might get lucky and never see this problem again. I would not be so lucky.

Post by **volvolugnut** » 15 Dec 2025, 12:48

Perhaps a momentary loss of electric power from a bad connection?
volvolugnut

Post by **scot850** » 15 Dec 2025, 13:15

Speed signal/ABS signal issue? If you did not lose the speed indication then that would be unlikely I think on the ABS, but it could still be a peed signal to the trans.

Neil.

EngineeringBloke · Post by **EngineeringBloke** » 19 Dec 2025, 17:32

I had a few years when I'd get an intermittent transmission fault. The display would loose the 'D', replaced by a '-'. I'd get a check engine warning light, and my odb2 would report transmission control unit communications failure. The car would feel like it was in too high a gear, lacking in power.

This sometimes happened after highway driven and encountering heavy traffic. I don't recall the transmission temperature but it might have been elevated.

However, it was often gone on restart.

I suspected a connection issue in the TCM. So I bought a tool to release the TCM from its base and used electrical contact cleaner. I checked the tiny fan that vents the ECM/TCM box but it seemed ok.

I've not had the problem for 5 years or so now.

I don't think I had issues with the tach but that could still come from the TCM.

Post by **cn90** » 19 Dec 2025, 21:40

Could be bad instrument cluster.

hu5ker555 · Post by **hu5ker555** » 20 Dec 2025, 07:08

EngineeringBloke wrote: ↑19 Dec 2025, 17:32 I had a few years when I'd get an intermittent transmission fault. The display would loose the 'D', replaced by a '-'. I'd get a check engine warning light, and my odb2 would report transmission control unit communications failure. The car would feel like it was in too high a gear, lacking in power.

This sometimes happened after highway driven and encountering heavy traffic. I don't recall the transmission temperature but it might have been elevated.

However, it was often gone on restart.

I suspected a connection issue in the TCM. So I bought a tool to release the TCM from its base and used electrical contact cleaner. I checked the tiny fan that vents the ECM/TCM box but it seemed ok.

I've not had the problem for 5 years or so now.

I don't think I had issues with the tach but that could still come from the TCM.

That sounds similar, though i lost the tach. The issue has not come back, but I guess I might try your suggestion if it does. Thank you!

Post by **DavidE7** » 20 Dec 2025, 20:49

I had that problem when the radiator was leaking coolant into the transmssion fluid. It stopped happening after I replaced the radiator and drained/flushed the transmission. The transmission fluid had turned brown from the mixing of the blue-green coolant with the red transmission fluid.