Speed Sensor Fault Where Are They?

Hi guys.... i'm a newb here I currently own a 1997 toyota calinda gtt 2litre engine number 3s-gte MODEL e-st215w-dwpzzz. i have a fault in the car that has got worst over time. the fault is that as you are driving the car the rev counter and speedo stops working the vsc light comes on the overdrive light comes on to stay o/d off. if you stop and turn off the ignition and restart car its resets to normal untill you drive or leave idleing for a which can be as short as 2 to 5mins or even straight away that it will go into fault mode again with all the same fault occurring as mentioned above.
I have had a auto electrican check out his finding on his computor read out was it was a speed sensor fault we then replace both right and left front wheel abs speed sensors as they could not find any speedo cable on the gearbox.
So they are asuming that the abs sensor give the speed of car. we replaced these and the car was still the same.
But they coulnt tell me why i the other things go into fault.
HAVE YOU HERD OF THIS HAPPENING BEFORE TO ANY BODY.
Do you now of a way to fix this problem.
THankyou Bruce.

Hi i am having this problem with my car now i am just wondering if you ever got an answer and if so what was causing the fault.

I take it the ABS has motion sensors not speed, as it only detects when wheel(s) has stopped when the other(s) are still turning.

Speed sensor should still come from the gearbox but might be a electric cable (as the km's are clocked up digitally)
The speedo will work with the electronic pulses sent from the gearbox. (no more cables that break)
This is probably what is causing your issues.

My 98 Caldina is a 1.8L 7A-FE 5spd ABS version.

I think I may have the same problem too.

My LCD odometer is not displaying anything, along with speedo & rev counter not working.
This was an intermittant problem, happening for a couple of short period during the last few years. It now appears permanent.

My 5spd caldina does not have a speedo cable or an electronic pickup in the gearbox. Where the cable or speed sensor normally goes has a blank. My gearbox is a C52, C57 or similar, can't remember the exact number, but having had many Toyotas I'm familiar with this box & where the speedo normally connects. When I first noticed the problem, I only saw the speedo not working & this was the first thing I looked for. I assumed that it must be getting the speed signal from an ABS computer or similar, and until recently had been thankful it was an irregular problem.

I've pulled out the cluster & checked for broken or scorched/burnt components. I've disconnected & reconnected plugs there & at the engine computer behind the glovebox (pull out the plastic glovebox hinge pins for easy access). I've checked for voltage & ground at the cluster. There are two fuses which are not blown, labelled something like gauges & panel (fuses are behind pull out cubby hole to the lower right of the steering wheel, similar location as most toyotas I've had).

Hoping for a miracle answer please. I've got until the end of the year to solve this, when the car must pass a WOF, & needs a functioning speedo (I don't want to have to install a GPS or bicycle computer).

Now wondering if it is running a similar system to an Altezza???
Rather than One wire for water temperature, one wire for speedo, one wire for tacho, etc. Altezza system apparently runs differently. It only runs one wire to the dash for all of these, called something like 'MMC' or 'MMX'. It sends this one signal to the dash with all of the information imbedded in it; this signal is interpreted by the circuitry in the altezza dash; and sent to the appropriate gauges etc.

SOLVED!!!

A surface mount component had broken off the odometer circuit board. Only two connections, soldered it back on and rev counter, odometer, speedo, ECONO light all work again.

To get to it first pull the instrument cluster out of the dash. I noticed this problem because the cluster rattled when shaken.

Then take the odometer module out through the back of the instrument cluster by undoing 2 screws, taking out a bulb & releasing the plug from the back of the module (plug is part of the flexible circuit board on the back of the cluster).

Then take the hard circuit board off the odometer module by removing 2 screws, pulling the odometer LCD out of it's plug & releasing the 2 plastic clips holding the circuit board.

The loose component & side of the circuit board where it should be connected can now be seen. Put a little solder on each circuit board pad, hold the component down & apply a touch of heat/solder to the connection on the side furthest from the edge & then the edge connection. The text on the component should be the same way around as the square ~40 pin chip beside it (not the ~4 pin folded down transistor looking device to the side)

Wow! Thx aj. Aint the net wonderful.
ur a genius!!

shot man this was a really big help my caldina started to show all these sypmtoms yesterday, after reading ur reply i quickly pulled apart my dash and found the very same problem , all fixed now and was rather simple, as im a chef i have no idea about electronics in cars but this was easy to follow from ur intructions , thanx again think u saved alot of people sum cash, cherz gazza'.

Anyone got a solution to the orginal post ?

My Car shows similar syptoms ... clocks dying, car driving in safe mode.. LCD avg speed not giving readings.. Car not boosting.
5 speed manual.

My clocks have lights and work more often than not, but car drives in 'safe' with the engine light showing on the dash.

Computer said it was a speed sensor malfunction but no one knows where to start looking to solve it !!

Please help !!

i didnt have exactly the same problem but i feel it may be similar. My car's transmission was taking longer than normal to change gear and when it did this the engine check light would come on until the engine shut down. The transmission would also kick down to a lower gear at times withought my order.

I got a diagnostic assesment done and it came up with the problem being a 'speed sensor A fault"

turns out that this sensor was also linked to my radio/nav system and would turn the TV function off once the car is driving. I figure bad wiring may have been the cause of this problem as there was some work done to the system. The technician said that it may have been 'drowning out' the speed sensor signal or something like that. After disconnecting the radio the car ran perfectly.

As i said it may not be the same fault as the original post but it just might help someone searching for "speed sensor fault"

It worked!

Big Ups!

1997 Caldina GTT. The hardest part was getting the ODO LCD out of its socket. Recommend a plastic screw driver if you can find one (to avoid cracking the glass). Once out, and the hard circuit board is removed, I found the square black chip had completely fallen off the board. 5mins with a steady hand and standard hobby soldering iron and it was back on there.

The black chip in question had XC labelled on the board, which I think means that it is a Crystal. The worrying thing is that if it has been broken for a while, then how reliable is the odo reading!? (assuming that the crystal allows the odo circuitry to accurately calibrate pulses to km's) I'm sure my odo reading has been rising faster than it should have been, but cant be sure.

Anyway, cheers!

Caldina Speed Senor Fault - HELP!

Hi Guys. Great thread and read. Please excuse me as I am a newb.
I am an Australian, but currently located and living in Solomon Islands. I have a 1999 Toyota Caldina 1.8L Automatic, AT211 chassis and 7A engine.

I have had this problem for about 6 months, and can't get to the bottom of it and would really appreciate some help. I'm not a car expert but can do the basics.

The symptoms of the problem are as follows:
- ABS light on
- O/D light flashing
- Engine light on
- Speedo not working
- Transmission jumps around between gears when speed gets over about 25km/h
- The LCD Odomoeter is showing a reading, however i don't think it is turning over

I have tried the following:

1. A Mechanic friend thought the Transmission could use a clean out of the Transmission fluid and replaced and a general tune up. This was done but there was no difference and the problem remained.

2. I took it to the Toyota Dealership Repair shop here in Solomon Islands (Ela Motors) and they diagnosed it as a problem with the 'Transmission Sensor'. After ordering the part through them and waiting 3 months for it to arrive, you could imagined my frustration when the new transmission sensor made no difference and the problem remained still.

3. On a 2nd round of diagnostics at the Toyota Dealership it was defined as a 'Speed Senor' fault, but they had trouble locating it. A diagram was received from Toyota Japan that highlighted the speed senor as a cable running from the wheels to to the speedo (or transmission). The mechanic was telling me that the ABS sensors on the wheels couldn't read because there was tread missing from the CV Joint (or something like that). At this point I had lost patience with these guys and thought the mechanic was just guessing, so i pulled the car out to find another way.

4. I checked all fuses both on the engine side and those under the streering wheel to the right hand side. all ok.

5. After reading this thread and found that some similar problems had been solved as an electrical issue by opening up the instrument cluster in the dash and get in behind the speedo where their is a small circuit board. I followed the instructions, I checked it for a chip (or anything) that had come off or was loose but everything looked fine.

So that is my current situation, any suggestions would be welcome. and I would really appreciate some assistance.
Perhaps if you're ever in Solomon Islands I can show you around and grab a beer?

Thanks

Ryan

HI Ryza

Your symptoms sound exactly bang on what I had before I started mucking around with the dash cluster. Everything, particularly the O/D flashing, the engine light, along with the rev counter speedo etc. I'm pretty confident that mine was still in place but one solder joint was faulty until I pulled the cluster out.

I reckon you need to go back into the odo circuit board and look very closely at the condition of the solder joints for the SMD in question. It is the approx 5mm by 10mm rectangular chip in the bottom right. It might have 76 and a Z shape on it. The square multi pin chip was in the middle right.

Thanks for the response.
Only just got it.
Since then I have tried to replace the CV joint with one that has the speed sensor cog on it, as that may have been the problem. But it hasn't made a difference.
Im now getting advice that the ABS sensors are not sitting close enough on the wheel and that the spring inside of them maybe no goo and needs too be replaced.

any thoughts on that?

I might open up the cluster and have another look also, i im usually pretty thorough with that sort of stuff, but also im no electronics expert.

Thanks

Ryan

WOAH MAN. Thanks so much I'm a newbie here and saw this post and finally got a chance to fix my car. Thanks so much your a genius.

Hi All,

I've got a 1998 Caldina GT-T and I'm having a very similar problem to what has been described above, however I can't find any fault with the odometer PCB.

The problems with my cluster are:

• Speedo doesn't work
• Engine light stays on
• VSC light stays on
• O/D light flashes constantly
• Gear LCD doesn't work

This is the odometer board from my car:

 caldina_odo.jpg ( 1.19MB ) Number of downloads: 37


Is this the same PCB that everyone else has had trouble with?

I've had a close look at it and tested connections on a number of the components but I can't find any problems with it.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Hello everyone...
Even i was suffering with this problem and got relaxed after reading your posts.... They may be helpful for me....
Thank you...

Thats the one, I found the second component from the left at the top, the one marked 004 had separated from the board on the outside. It does not have any pins going through the board, it just attaches to a track below it so I blobbed a bit of solder onto it and it all seems to work perfectly now :)

My turbo shaft broke on my standard turbo for my 1998 caldina gtt, st215, tiptronic so i upgraded it and put a t3/t4 turbo on it. now the car starts fine and seems to run ok maybe a little bit rich in the fuel and air side of things but still runs fine.
Now i can drive for about 5mins then if im in manual mode the "M" light will flash then the check engine light will come on then the VSC light will come on. when this happens if i stay in manual i can still operate the gears manually but if i put it into auto then back to manual i have no manual control. when this happens the transmission will not go into 4th gear and when going from drive to reverse and when i stop and the auto goes straight to first gear the transmission takes its time to go into the correct gear and sumtimes needs a little rev before it goes into gear. when i turn off the car and leave it for a few mins then start driving again it starts off ok for a few mins but then it repeats this process.
I have run some engine clean through the engine, changed the oil and filter, have put a new alluminum racing radiator in which includes a new oil cooler for the trans, i replaced the trans oil for some really good quality oil, the turbo is brand new with a 2.5inch dump leading into the factory exhaust with a bigger rear muffler, still using the standard top mount intercooler, standard wastegate actuator running 14psi boost.
Any ideas will be a massive help.
Thanks

I would start with checking that pcb as above mate, it seems to be a bit of a culprit for these issue. But with the work you have done on that motor there are a few other things that could be causing it I would think.

Dont ask me what but, I dont know!!