Really odd noise has started of late behind my spedometer. It occurs when the needle is above 33 mph. It either is a repetitive noise that sounds like brushing teeth (swish-swish-swish-swish-swish) or a repetitive squeak (eep-eep-eep-eep) that follows the spedometer.

My dad thought it might be that the spedometer cable was out of "grease" so he had me back up the car really fast a couple of times to "reverse the spedometer cable" and he thought that might "dip it into some of the grease if there was any left" (he is not a mechanic, nor am I so if you are rolling on the floor my feelings are not hurt ;) )

This procedure actually worked...once, or perhaps it stopped by lucky coincidence. However, today, it is back, eep-eep-eep. It totally ruins the quiet ride of the cadillac because it is right there, squeaking away behind the spedometer. Very irritating. Hitting the dashboard did not work either.

Any idea what it is? My dad says he thinks i'll just have to have a new cable put in. It's so bizarre. I was thinking maybe I could stick a can of WD-40 thru that little hole where the button to set the trip meter is and see if I could get some grease in that way (if that is actually the problem) but I sure don't want to do that unless its okay.

ok heres the skinny: yes its the cable and even correctly greasing it up wont matter, its easier to replace the whole cable. i had that same problem and a friend greased it up for me. about 5k miles later it kept on doing it so i just replaced the cable (10 bucks of rockauto.com cheap) its cheaper/better to get a new cable than just grease it up. now the bitch is the dash...i had a bit trouble but i had a factory gm manual with me so the procedure was easy alltogether.

I'm a law student, and as far as fixing it myself goes, I'm good for changing spark plugs, fluids, and the air filter but aside from that pretty helpless.


How many hours of labor do you suppose it might take a mechanic to get that rather cheap part in?

Some shops remember how to grease a speedometer cable. There is a special grease adaptor which screws on to the speedometer cable after you remove the cable at the transmission end. The trick is to grease it very slowly using a manual pump grease gun. Many shop air grease guns make enough pressure to blow the cable housing apart. This will solve the problem about half the time using EP lube.