Hi,

I was driving home in my 71 beetle last night and the speedometer started making a racket! I pulled over and disconnected the cable so I could drive home in peace. Can anyone suggest what could be the cause of the problem?

It happened to me a month ago. It was just the cable and went when I replaced it. Cheap fix.

The only way to tell for sure is to open it up and have a look. If you aren't confident to do this, you can buy a second hand one from a VW mechanic or wrecker fairly cheap (under $50)

Try the cable first. It'll only cost you 10 bucks... Then if it's not that change the speedo, or pull it apart.

[Edited on 17-8-2004 by Oasis]

Thanks for your replies that is really helpful, I will pop my old MPH speedo back in to see whether the noise remains, if so I will replace the cable.

Mine did that in cold weather & finally snapped a couple of weeks ago.
Put replacement in and now works fine, took all of 5 mins.
$20 from Micks Motors

The cable usually breaks strand by strand... so the speedo would have started playing up as more & more strands broke...
I always put a few drops of oil into the top of the speedo cable to lubricate the inner cable....

Lee