I had what I thought was the classic Maxima speedometer problem -- intermittent operation caused by a defective Vehicle Speed Sensor. So, I found a reasonable priced VSS at RockAuto.com ($67) and ordered same.
Replaced the unit, and I STILL had a balky speedometer. I was so pi$$ed that I hit the dash with my fist, and lo and behold the speedometer came back to life for a moment. It's still intermittent, but a good whack on the dash sometimes brings it back to life - temporarily.

So, I have a perfectly good VSS for sale if someone needs it, and a question of what can be causing this within the dash? I'm sure a loose plug could do it, but all the other guages and lights work fine... are there possibly loose solder joints in the instrument cluster like those in the clock?

Any and all suggestions gratefully accepted. My hand is starting to hurt from punching my dash!

 

your description would match a bad connection on the board

 

My speedometer went intermittent a couple years after I bought my new 89 se. Like you, I bought a new sensor and that didn't fix it. I then bought a whole new speedometer from Nissan and that worked. So, it might be your speedometer itself that went bad. I never tried to hit mine, so its difficult to say.
Another piece of advice, keep the sensor. A couple years ago, my speedometer stopped working again. I thought the speedometer went bad again and I dreaded trying to find another one. Just for grins, I put the original sensor back in the tranny and it worked again. So, I'm glad I kept the sensor all those years.

 

By the way, I still have my old speedometer if you think you could use it in some way.

 

I had this exact same problem....speedo don't move...miles dont move...and trip miles dont move............right???? If this is the case....and the computer says vehicle sensor( that alos means sensor AND CIRCUIT)....you are going to have to take out your speedo....I bet you will see where the burn mark is on the board....I have to re-soder the wire to the board...and it worked just fine and has since....next time you got a problem...talk to us before you go and order a part for a problem you aren't 100% sure on..save yourself some problems...Good luck

 

Maybe you guys can help me out? I have a perfect working speedo and tacho, but the odometer stopped working after being intermittent for half a year or so. I even went to Nissan and told them that I tried a different cluster and odometer still would not work, but the ******* 'service manager' 'forgot' to mention that to the mechanic, who blindly suggested to replace the speed sensor simply because 'a tab was broken'...
I really tried a cluster that was taken from a car where it worked fine, but it stopped after two miles in mine and once returned to the old car it worked fine. I looked all my eyes out at the PCB but could not find a crack or bad solder joint anywhere on mine. That plus the cluster swap made me think it was somewhere in the harness where the problem was... Any ideas?

 

I took out the instrument cluster this morning, removed the speedometer unit and inspected it very closely, but didn't see any obvious broken solder joints or cold solder joints. Nevertheless, I took out the soldering iron and touched up those solder joints I could get at (darn surface mount techology -- my eyes aren't what they used to be!).
I fixed the clock while I was in there as well (cold solder joints).
Also, I took a pencil eraser and cleaned up the jacks where the connectors go on the back of the cluster.
After re-assembly, I took it up the road and it worked fine for the 3 miles I drove it.

Keeping my fingers crossed...

 

you most likely re-soldered a right wire...maybe it had too weak a connection?

 

Well, I took the Maxi for an extended drive this evening and the speedometer got up to its old tricks about 10 miles into the trip.
Same exact thing -- intermittent operation, sometimes you can smack the dash and bring it back to life for a bit.

When I dismantled it today, I was unable to get the face of the speedometer off from the speedometer circuit board (not the instrument cluster -- removed the speedo from that no problem). Is there a trick to getting the needle off? After that, the white face just appears to come off and there are two screws underneath. Perhaps then I can do a more thorough examination of the front of the ciruit board.

More suggestions?

 

See Geerhed, it is consistent with behavior of my odometer. Replacing the cluster works, but only for a few minutes. I am getting more and more convinced, that the problem of us all is in the harness between the cluster and computer/sensors etc. But where!!!

 

Not completely consistent: I can smack my dash hard and it fixes the problem temporarily.