Volvo, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Porsche, Audi, VW and Saturn all use the same VDO instruments, a design that's been in use since around the early 50s. There's a couple of little plastic gears that can fail and one in particular - the pinion drive gear - that is almost always the cause for the odometers demise.

The gear is not available. You'd have to buy a new odometer. You don't want to know what they cost.

But one of us car junkies got fed up with this situation and began making gears. While not exactly cheap at $25 US they're still a godsend and face it you'd pay twice that much for them if you found some old NOS Mercedes gear wouldn't you?

Check out: http://www.odometergears.com/