OK, time to ask the auto gurus among you for some help.
My car has had a relay clicking sound in the dash for some time (driver’s side, left of steering column, bottom part of dash). It occurs erratically, though lately it’s become much more frequent. The sound only occurs when I’m driving, and seems to be related to the position of the RPM indicator. I swear it occurs more frequently when the weather is warmer, too, but that could be my imagination.
In the last week, I’ve had my dashboard instruments (tachometer, speedometer, and fuel indicator) peg out a couple of times, and go zero once, but they always return to normal. The battery light sometimes comes on when the problem happens, but turns off almost immediately.
The car runs fine, and the battery and alternator are both new. The repair shop couldn’t see any short when the car was in for some fairly major work a few weeks ago, but I’m not sure how good this shop is when it comes to wiring problems.
I should probably take it into a Ford dealer, but I just spent a massive amount of money on it a couple of weeks ago. I really hope to have a good idea of what’s happened before I take it into the repair shop again, because it seems that every time I take the car in for a fix, something gets fixed, but this problem isn’t it.
The car is a 2002 Ford Focus, with 80,000 miles on it.
If anyone has any suggestions, please send me an email, or maybe tweet something. I’m really afraid to take the car out on the open road, but I just don’t have money to keep taking it into the repair shop.