Hey gang...just dropped the fiance off at the hair dresser and headed to starbucks to waste some time with my laptop. The speedo on my 98 outback quit along with the odometer on the way. Tach is still working though. Did a search and it looks as though the VSS sensor might be the culprit. What does VSS stand for...variable speed sensor? Where is this located on the car? Don't have my Haynes manual with me...Thanks for any advice.

 

Doug

VSS stands for Vehicle Speed Sensor I do believe and its probably located on or near the transmission. I'm sure if you provide the year and model of the car that someone with more info will help you out.

Is the speedo digital or analog?

The VSS2 is gone on your car. Replace it and your CEL will go away and your Speedo will work again.

 

The VSS2 is the sensor at the front of the transmission.

Doug, the problem as noted is with the #2 speed sensor.

 

This unit is spun by a gear in the front differenial.

 

A complete summary can be seen in this post,

it has pictures of where it is located and a description

of it's operating system.

 

VSS#2 details and problems

 

The sensor may be bad, the wiring may be bad or, as is

my case, the gear driving it could be bad.

 

It is a Hall effect switch -> sends pluses to the ECU and TCU.

The pulse rate varries with vehicle speed.

- the car will drive without it as the brain boxes use VSS#1

as a back up.

 

At the bottom of this page are other links to this problem.

 

Hope this helps

hook a scanner up to it first, i have 2 cars in the shop right now with the same issues. one has a bad speedo head the other is a speed sensor