I know I should have known better, but 2 years ago I bought my old man a set of Aurora brand gauges for a 1953 Plymouth Wagon he is building. Typical project taking much longer than expected. The gauges stayed in the box for 20 months in his hall closet, safe and sound. He finally got the dash welded up/ painted etc, and installed the gauges last month. We went to get the car fired up on the real wiring harness for the first time, (We hotwired the engine to get it primed and running on only the battery before the dash was even installed in the car) and every one of the gauges is dead, 2 peg to full/high, 2 peg to empty/low. The Speedo and Tach are just plain dead. I re check the wiring, everything is legit and correct. I call the Hoffman Group (Manufacturers for the gauges) and am on hold for 45 minutes. I finally get the tech guy, and while he is knowledegable on the product, and jovial, tells me his hands are tied, and the warranty is out. I figured as much, and was willing to pay to have them repaired etc... Well it seems they have since changed the gauges, and can not repair them or update them. They will not even offer a replacement set at a discount! Piss Poor customer service, and a piss poor product to boot! The only reason I went with the Aurora gauges is you can design your own faces for them and customize them. I know I should have known better, and stuck with Autometer or VDO. I am just diong a PSA to warn others before they buy any of this crap.
No straight 12V, according to the joke of an instrucion sheet they give you Actually I believe they are designed to work in my Garbage can! That is where they are going to end up for sure..
Every gauge being dead sounds kinda sketchy. One or two, yeah. But all of em? Time to investigate your wiring, the fact some are pegging in different directions is the big hint here. Sure you're not mixing senders or ground wires?? Triple sure??? Good luck!
Quadruple sure, I wire industrial control panels for a living, and checked out my dads work, everything is up to spec. The only thing that works is the dash lights. The tech support guy even stated that there were problems with the "Early" gauges, and recommended Dolphin brand gauges to me. The LCD display on the speedo never lit up. The tech guy even had me swap the ground and sending unit wires, as some were manufactured with the terminals crossed?!? The terminals are clearly marked + - and S, pretty hard to mix them up.
Another funny thing, the instructions show the Volt meter with 2 terminals on the back, + and -, the gauge I have has the same 3 terminals as the other gauges. I have tried to wire that particular gauge in every possible combination of the 3 terminals with no success.
I agree with shifty, given my electronics background it would be a rare event that all the gauges are bad. I would take maybe the temp gauge out of the wiring harness and run separate wires to test it. If they are not digital gauges the only thing that will hurt them is voltage over 12v. If the temp gauge pegs the opposite direction with power applied then voltage polarity or the sender is at fault. I'm guessing your gauges are fine or it is something else.
Thanks for the heads up on that brand when i need some gauges ill definitly look at a different brand
No loom, just crappy instructions that don't match what they have online now. I tried all 9 possible combinations on all 3 terminals on the fuel, temp, and Oil Pressure gauges as well.
I am a BSEE myself, and this is also what I thought, I tried every possible combinantion, cheating the senders with resistors and potentiometers as well since the Hoffman group told me I was Chit Outta Luck back on Dec 1st. The gauges either Peg to the max or min, no matter what I have tried. Honestly the Tech told me it was fairly common with the old style gauges they offered, just that mine were too old for the limited lifetime warranty they offer. I have no problem with the tech, he did all he could.
I know I should have known better, and stuck with Autometer or VDO. I have some very pricey Autometers on an OT car and currently the fuel gauge is dead (that may change though, it's 'died' before) and the needle fell off the OP. Very disappointing to hear about your case. Seems like I've had bad luck with anything but Stewart Warner.
funny how that works....lifetime warranty...only limited to....well lets see...five minutes ago...I feel your pain brother
I wired some gauges for a friend a while back.I believe they were TPI or possible Dolphin.One gauge had a bad sender and another gauge was just bad.He thought i had wired them wrong.He sent back the bad parts and put in replacement parts and the gauges worked.I will not use cheap gauges or reccomend them.I know the same guy had more trouble later with the gauges.My old car has Classic gauges in it that are 20 years old and they still work perfect today.
Here's a link to the FTE forum where someone else had an issue with the Hoffman Group... http://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/901493-another-bad-experience.html
Call Classic Instruments. They may offer you a small trade-in for your POS gauges. They do cost more than some but they are the best products and best customer relations in the business. I have their stuff in two cars with no issues at all.
i have some of the gauges in my car.not to happy with mine either.they look cool.but cant depend on them to work ,
I had the needle fall off my autometer oil PSI gauge. everything is about the dollar bill and quality and pride in the products companies sell is non existant. it's the (new) American way
Reminds me of the fellow I heard about who asked about the lifetime warranty on something, only to be told, "We didn't think you'd live this long."
thanks for the heads up,apparently from another post,s.w. is junk too,guess like every thing else on my car i'm gonna have to make the originals work but thats cool,anyway check your grounds,make sure your dash is grounded.
Garbage can? naaah..... Find out who the CEO of the company is, and mail them attn: to him with a nice little letter explaining just how pissed you are, how he might as well have 'em cause they don't work for you, and how you just finished posting your experience on an internet forum of 100k car guys. All you're out is shipping , plus you get a chance to vent to the head man Friend of mine did that with a broken out-of-warranty cell phone several years ago, and damned if he didn't get a new one a week later.
just make sure when you send the CEO that letter tell him the tech guy did what he could and make sure the letter is registered.
X 3. Had a faulty temp gauge in my Dads coupe, couple of emails back and forth all sorted. I think they are also Alliance vendors.
I'm still baffled as to why all of the gauges would fail simultaneously. Although the best of us sometimes overlook something (Many electrical gremlins on the '38 Ford pickup went away with the tightening of the bolt attaching the ground cable to the engine block), it sounds like you know what you're doing and have checked and rechecked wiring and grounds. FWIW, I have thus far had good experience with the Dolphin gauges in my truck.
I have gone as far as wiring each gauge up individually on my workbench with my 12V regulated power supply, and either the sending units, or resistors and potentiometers to get the gauges to do something, anything. It is not that difficult, there are 3 terminals, and the gauge housings are plastic. so there is only 9 possible combinations, I have tried all 9. As to the CEO, the tech Actually told me he was sending an E-mail to the CEO and had me hold while he did it. I gave it a week before I posted here as I understand CEOs are usually pretty busy people. It is a funny thing too, as I have a garage business, and my main Warehouse Distributor just picked up Hoffman products as a new vendor, and I was going to order a couple of linear actuators ofr another OT project. I will NOT be using Hoffman for that I'm sure.
Jump on this; http://www.thehoffmangroup.com/aurora/wingauges.lasso Earl Schieb's idea sounds like a winner. Along with the gauges include a letter asking why they're offering free gauges to anybody but you. Sounds like the "Lifetime Warranty" is only for the lifetime of the gauge(s).
??? How can something be too old for a lifetime warranty? do they mean the gauges have a limited lifetime, and after that you're SOL? That's what I'd be asking. Personally I've never seen an aftermarket gauge I liked the looks of better than most any factory setup, so I wouldn't use this product anyways, but that's just me.
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