2004 Land Cruiser Gauge Cluster FIXED! How-To

[excessive]

my 2004 lx470 has the stepper motor issue. i bought a used cluster from a 2005 lx470, and plugged it in. all the gauges work perfectly on the "new" cluster. but the check engine and other wanring lights stay on, not matter what I do. Just FYI for anyone else, apparently the clusters are not interchangeable, and they are i guess coded to the vehicle - which I was not aware was a thing back in 2004

 

[imperium]

my 2004 lx470 has the stepper motor issue. i bought a used cluster from a 2005 lx470, and plugged it in. all the gauges work perfectly on the "new" cluster. but the check engine and other wanring lights stay on, not matter what I do. Just FYI for anyone else, apparently the clusters are not interchangeable, and they are i guess coded to the vehicle - which I was not aware was a thing back in 2004

I don't think they're coded to the vehicle. I got a refurbished unit off another cruiser and (after replacing the stepper motors again) it works great.

 

[SMLE]

Hi folks,

As shown in my post on page 13, my 2004 cluster had the different stepper motors (Lexus type). I can't afford to send my cluster to Tanin in the states, and in all honestly I'm not super confident in their work/support after reading a few previous posts on this thread regarding them.

Last week, I sent the cluster to a well regarded repairer in the UK, they have in general advised that stepper motor failure on them is very very rare in his experience, and that the issue actually relates to other problems (no further info shared). The issue after I attempted to replace the motors on mine last year (which were the wrong type) was that my calibration of the needles went badly and they've all been way off adding further confusion to the issue.

He has tested the cluster and has been unable to simulate any variance e.g. it doesn't vary in the speed/revs it shows on his test rig vs the speedo reading varying amounts over the actual speed when fitted to the car and driving. It's being returned to me this week with the needles re-calibrated, and I've been asked to record the issue next time it happens so I can provide him with more information on how it behaves so he can try and diagnose the issue better rather than going through the entire cluster without any clear cause.

I'm going to report back on this, as I'm very interested to see how this compares to the issues others have had, specifically with the clusters like mine fitted with the later LX470 type motor. Imagine the stepper motors on these later ones weren't actually the issue at all...

I'm still reserving judgement on the true cause/fix until I get an outcome either way, but it's an interesting twist!

Just an update - following the unsuccessful diagnosis previously, the Speedo and Rev counter started misbehaving again within a few days of it coming back as expected (given nothing was repaired etc).

One of the symptoms mine had was the needles sometimes not returning to zero after coming to a standstill/turning off when its been reading much higher than it should during the journey. In order to narrow down the issue, the repair shop asked me to disconnect the batteries to confirm if this was a voltage issue or a mechanical issue. I've not yet done this, but hopefully will be able to in the coming month or two when it does rear it's head again.

I'll report back on the issue as and when it's identified, but the repair shop said stepper motors are very unlikely to be at fault, however that doesn't agree with large amounts of other people, so lets wait and see