Expert: Sean Halliday - 8/26/2009

Question
About a year ago the tachometer/rev counter in my 2002 Mini Cooper stopped working. I took it to a German car repair garage and they put a new rev counter in & it still didn't work. They said there was a problem with the relay to the speedometer/instrument cluster and that the entire instrument cluster would have to be replaced. I opted not to replace it & just go without the rev counter. The problem now is that my car won't pass smog because they cannot get one certain reading off of the rev counter. My question is two fold...do I need to replace the speedometer/instrument cluster in order to get the rev counter to work? and does the rev counter affect the performance of my car? Thanks for your help!

Answer
The car will run fine without a rev counter, but if the smog shop says you need it then thats that.You could try a used cluster as there are many online used sources.Before you buy anything get a second opinion as it may be the sensor from the gearbox which is bad.