Hey Patsy, er a...Super Turtle,

Are you sure the mileage is dropping off? Have you paid close attention to the odometer to ensure it was registering all miles? The mileage on the 280 dropped to between 6-8 MPG, and that just didn't seem right. I started watching the odometer and soon realized it was only logging about 1/2 the miles. The inside temperature of the car seemed to affect the function - if the interior got too warm from sunshine, or the cluster got too warm from the dash lights being on for extended periods, the odometer would stop turning. It would even stop turning if I had the heater on for too long. The speedo would continue to work normally whenever this happened. Could possibly be the same problem on your end.

There are some DIY fixes, if you want to try, do a search on speedo/odo problems. If you don't want to mess with it, you can farm it out. I opted to farm the job out to Palo Alto Speedo ( http://www.paspeedo.com ), and am pleased with the results. They had the speedo head back to me in one week, rebuilt and recalibrated, new parts installed. I also opted to complete the speedo ratio test, to verify calibration.

__________________
Mike Tangas
'73 280SEL 4.5 (9/72)- RIP
Only 8,173 units built from 5/71 thru 11/72

'02 CLK320 Cabriolet - wifey's mid-life crisis

2012 VW Jetta Sportwagon TDI...at least its a diesel

Non illegitemae carborundum.