If one more thing goes wrong this winter, I think I might just freak out and do something stupid, like buy a Hyundai out of spite.

Driving to work today was the same as usual, mostly. Start car, shiver, start driving, relax as the heat finally comes on, enter the highway, shake fist angrily at the terrible drivers. Now, my speedometer is fairly accurate (It's always been about 5mph fast when checked against GPS, but I think that's normal), and has never really given me any issues in the past. I know my cable is probably on its way out, since even in the summertime, my needle bounces until I get up to about 15mph. On extremely cold days, the needle will sometimes get twitchy at about 70 to 74mph, but smooth out again at 75. Odd.

Well, today was a little different. I got on the highway, drove for about 15 minutes @70-75mph (car is nice and toasty warm at this point, it's 20f outside), and was rather suddenly greeted with an extremely loud whine from behind the cluster, causing the speedometer to fluctuate wildly, and kind of "glide" from position to position. I panicked and pulled the car over; the noise stopped. Started driving again, and at about 50mph, the noise came back. The racket from behind the cluster is loud enough (and I guess vibrates enough) to make the surrounding needles kind of twitchy, too. Since the speedometer is mechanical, I don't even know HOW that's possible.

So does this sound like a typical "you need a new cable / need to lube up your current one" fix, or is this something more serious, like my speedometer head giving up the ghost? Can I catch a break this winter? Ugh!

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(Oo{=|=}oO) 1983 MB 300D USA, 212,000mi. 80's yellow/white. "Gunther"
(Oo{=|=}oO) 1984 MB 300D Euro, Turbo Added in Germany, 186,000mi [SOLD] Missing her dearly.
(Oo{=|=}oO) 1984 MB 300D USA Turbodiesel, 269,000mi. [SOLD]