Speedometer repair fiasco
 

So I have been following the speedo threads here and decided to send mine in, to Southern Electronics, (the link posted on this forum) What a mistake that was.
At first I was going to replace the green gear my self, but after calling them and explaining the speedo bounce going on, they said oh you definaatly have a problem on the board with a leaky capacitor. So I sent them the speedo and $195 for the repair. Well after 26 days of nothing I called them to see what was up. They told me my speedo was sitting on the shelf while they tried to find a movment for it. I asked "when were you going to tell me?" They had no answer. They told me the speedo came to them with a broken movement and no needle. Well I could not say about the movement, biut the needle was on the face of the gauge when I taped up the box, so I know they were lieing. I asked, so now what ? They said movements were very hard to find and it would cost an additional $150 to fix. Now it would be $345.
I got on the internet and found DNA Speedometers in Tampa FL. Called them they told me, 1 there is no movement, it is a motor, 2 these speedos are made in Germany by VDO. Same as Porshe, VW and others, and many parts are interchangable. They told me it would cost a total of $190 to fix everything.
I told southern send my speedo back, now. It came back with a note stateing that is had been received by them "completley disassembled" another lie, I took 8 screws out of the back and removed the green gear. nothing more. Also Southern had soldered all these little red jumper wires all over the board, completly unessesary acording to DNA.
Any way I got my speedo back today from DNA ready to reinstal.

dont you have any pick a part yards?

is that a junk yard ? yes of course

yeah, the cheaper remove it yourself yards, speedo, 15.

Prob with the junk yard is, how long will that speedo last ? (it is common for a capacitor to leak on these models, that ruins the circit boards) besides I like the 418,000 miles on my odometer. I intend to keep this truck until I don't have to work any more, it that ever happens.

junk yards are good for some things but not everything IMO

I wouldn't care how long it'll last: $15 or so, vs. $345 spells it for me. For a speedo, there are only so many parts you'd address that I'd go several times to the boneyard

West coasters like Sooty don't realize how good they have it sometimes with respect to the availability of good used parts at very reasonable prices. I grew up in SoCal maintaining my car with pieces from the self serve junkyards there. Took a trip to Baltimore via St. Louis and in both places had a very difficult time finding self service junk yards and when I did the majority of vehicles in them were under 10 years old. 20 year old vehicles like my truck were non-existant. We west coasters really have it made with respect to used part availability.