With about 82,000 miles, my ‘89 190E 2.6 odometer quit . . slowly. Before it stopped, it registered about 1 mile to 10 traveled. The trip odo is similarly limited. The spedo works fine. Any ideas? Re there 2 cables for these functions?

You have a bad gear within the speedo unit. It will have to be sent to a speedo shop or a new unit installed. Having it repaired allows your original mileage record to remain.

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Steve Brotherton
Owner 24 bay BSC
Bosch Master, ASE master L1
26 years MB technician

As Steve said, this is a mechanical failure inside the speedo. There is only one cable. I have repaired many in house where I work.

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Benzmac:
Donnie Drummonds
1991 GMC Syclone
ASE CERTIFIED MASTER AUTO TECHNICIAN
SERVICE MANAGER FOR 14 BAY FACILITY
MERCEDES SPECIALIST 8 YRS
PARTNER IN MERCEDESSHOP.COM

It's an easy DIY repair job. The procedure for securing the loose drive wheel was posted in Nov/99 (search 'odometer' and 'Barrie').
If you can't find it, let me know and I'll be glad to re-post.

I found the 11/99 post; how is the instrument cluster removed?

Just did the repair on the odometer this afternoon on my 87 190E 2.6 with 77K on the clock.

As some of the other post, fairly simple job once you get the speedometer out.

The wheel on the far right is slipping, which controls the other wheels. I took the small shaft out with the little white gear on it, carefully sliding in a small drill bit at the same time. Once I had the little shaft out, I made some knurl marks using a pair of vise grips on the area of the far right wheel, then with the aid of a small hammer, tapped (beat :-0) the saft back in.

Got the speed odometer back togeather, and put in the car, and every thing worked great :-). Biggest problem I had was getting my big hands in the dash to unhook & re hook the left AC vent hose going to the left vent.

Other, than that, "fairly" easy DIY job.

Remove the cover under the dash to be able to acess under the dash.

To take out the insturment panel, first un hook the left AC vent going to the left vent.

Unscrew the speedometer cable from the back of the speedometer. Then gently push out on the insturment panel. I left the steering wheel in place, and was able to tilt the insturment panel a little, & unplug the wires from the back. Make a note and spend a little time looking where every thing is while you are unplugging so you can get it back.

Reverse the above to go back togeather.

If it turns out that you need new pieces I can provide them; gears, needles, etc.

By the way US2,

If you are a large-framed person with big hands, it might be difficult to get your hand underneath the dash and at the cluster to disconnect the speedo cable. I normally just climb under the car and disconnect the speedo from the tranny linkage to give the cable enough slack to slide the cluster out. Then, I disconnect it. If you go that route, use cable lube on both ends, too...and don't stretch the cable.

- John
6'2" - 195lbs (188cm - 89kg)
Sometimes the 190 feels a little small for me.

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John J. Meadows
'83 300D 3.0L 260k mi.
'85 190E 2.3L 99k mi.