1999 Cadillac Deville - Instrument gauge is freaking out (w/video)

[Mojoed]

I have a 1999 Cadillac Deville with 83k miles and recently the instrument dash gauge has been going bananas to put it mildly. Below is a list of what is happening. Car runs, shifts and drives great otherwise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-hXshFGa-8&feature=c4-overview&list=UUy6XVx7reRzQMwJz5tagpzA

The following digital messages cycle repeatedly.
"Check brake fluid"
"Service air bag"
"check coolant"
"Theft system problem, car may not restart" (it does)

Also, all other dash gauges reset to "--". The radio turns on and off and the A/C shuts off and blasts me with heat. :-( CEL, traction control and brake dash lights are also lit up.

I tried disconnecting the battery for awhile and reconnecting it. This did not help the problem.

It feels like I'm in a Stephen King book when I drive this thing.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[iamwiz82]

Bad ground, bad cluster, bad computer, dying battery, bad connector. It could be anything, electrical gremlins are usually not fun.

 

[boomerang]

I'll bet it's the cluster itself, but without a shop manual and some troubleshooting it's nothing more than a wild ass guess. I would think a 1999 would not have a ton of computer integration with the cluster. But it is a Cadillac and Cadillac has pretty much been the first within GM for new technology.

These people repair digital clusters.

http://www.specmo.com/default.aspx

I haven't dealt with them for many, many years but you might want to give them a call. They used to be pretty nice folks to deal with.

 

[LTC8K6]

Alternator beginning to fail?

 

[tortillasoup]

Put a battery charger on that battery and fully charge it (I prefer trickle chargers like the Batteryminder 1500) which desulfates while charging/maintaining... Second thing I'd do is clean up the battery terminals and a small handful of significant electrical grounds (like the ground for the battery negative cable which attaches to the body) and then see if doing both of those things fixes the issue.

I've seen on quite a few cars made in the last decade or so go ape shit when the battery voltage gets too low. The engineers design the cars under perfect conditions but seemingly forget that cars deviate from "ideal" overtime and will continue to be driven in such condition...

 

[JMapleton]

Did you service the air bag and check your brake fluid?

 

[pcgeek11]

Alternator beginning to fail?

This ^^^

I had an older truck and all the cluster lights etc would freak out occasionally ( like yours ) except it wasn't digital gauges. After digging through the entire electrical system I found that one of the slip rings in the alternator had grounded out due to wear.

 

[iamwiz82]

Put a battery charger on that battery and fully charge it (I prefer trickle chargers like the Batteryminder 1500) which desulfates while charging/maintaining... Second thing I'd do is clean up the battery terminals and a small handful of significant electrical grounds (like the ground for the battery negative cable which attaches to the body) and then see if doing both of those things fixes the issue.

I've seen on quite a few cars made in the last decade or so go ape shit when the battery voltage gets too low. The engineers design the cars under perfect conditions but seemingly forget that cars deviate from "ideal" overtime and will continue to be driven in such condition...

Yep, my car went nuts when I killed the battery. Wipers started going, the dash went crazy, alarm went off, etc.

 

[Mojoed]

Hey, thanks for all the ideas guys. I think I'm going to start off by bringing it in to Auto Zone to have the battery/alternator tested. I'll post back as soon as I can.