Dash Board Issues

[Demond Bell]

I have a 2006 SS Truck and when I’m ridding all my gauges go down like the truck is off and immediately comes back to normal. The speedometer, RPM, Oil Pressure, Temp, Gas, and Battery gauges all drop down and then Battery light comes on. Has anyone else had this problem?

[dcairns]

I had that happen to me a few times about 15 years ago.  I never did anything to fix it, and it went away on it's own. 

Some suggest it might be the BCM (body control module), in particular the ground wires for it.  Some suggest the solder joints in the instrument cluster could cause it

The solder in the cluster is a known issue, I did a re-solder the resistor connections in my cluster because the gear selector indicator / driver information center (with the blue display) was becoming too dim to read. I also replaced the gauge stepper motors while I had it apart.

But keep searching, this would not be a problem unique to the SS, any Silverado in our production date range would have it, so there is lots of info out there.

Edited December 18, 2024 by dcairns (see edit history)

[someotherguy]

On 12/17/2024 at 7:05 PM, Demond Bell said:

I have a 2006 SS Truck and when I’m ridding all my gauges go down like the truck is off and immediately comes back to normal. The speedometer, RPM, Oil Pressure, Temp, Gas, and Battery gauges all drop down and then Battery light comes on. Has anyone else had this problem?

Happened on my '06 a couple times in the past year or two, in fact it just happened to me a few days ago.  Exact same symptoms.  It happens so rarely that anything you might try to fix it, you may not know for a long time whether it worked.  But as dcairns said it'll be a problem across all Silverado models of these years, not unique to an SS, so some searching across the web may come up with more info.

And just an FYI although the battery light is on, no fear, the alternator is still charging.  First time it happened to me on about a 45-50 minute drive home from work, I was probably 10-15 minutes from the house.  I didn't want to pull over and shut the truck off/re-start in case there was a problem that would keep it from starting back up.  So I crossed my fingers and continued home, no problems, got there and popped the hood - threw the voltmeter across the battery terminals and got a solid 14+V so I knew the alternator was still running.  When I threw the scanner on it I had a U1096 - loss of instrument cluster communication - that code may help with your searches.

I dug into some searching myself and found a lot of useless info but something that might help, a few people mentioned a yellow wire w/black trace, and one yt video had a guy working with that wire and apparently it's a ground connected at the passenger rear of the engine block.  The video wasn't very clear ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_ReFU3OhGI ) but if it leads you to the problem.. bonus!  And here I am thinking, I should check that same area, since my truck was at the transmission shop not long ago and them R&R'ing the trans may have disturbed wiring in that area, since the dipstick tube has to come up through there.

Richard

 

Edited December 19, 2024 by someotherguy (see edit history)