1999 Olds Intrique Gage and Warning Lights

I have a 1999 Olds Intrique with a 3.8 V8 engine. The gas gage, temperature gauge and Tach have stopped working and the Service Vehicle Soon, Radiator Low water and Traction Lights are ON all the time. When I try to read the codes with a code reader it searches for about one minute and then comes back with "NO LINK". There are no blown fuses. I have disconnected all of the control moduls under the dash in an effort to make the lights go out in order to trouble shoot the problem but I cannot get the lights to go out. I have pulled the fuse on the ECM and the lights continue to stay lit. I have pulled the gage/speedometer panel out and inspected it for bad solder connections but found nothing. The car has been running fine like this for two months and the altenator is putting out over 14 volts.

pesky electrical problems. Chances are oyu have no codes to read, just a bad ground somewhere causing the electrics to mess up. First things first make sure your battery terminals are cleaned off and making good contact...you would be surprised what a bad connection can do to a newer cars electronics. Usually what I see with a bad ground is the gages tend to go all the way up or keep moving around.

Battery connections are fine. The gages do not move at all...just stay at zero. As I said when I try to read the codes it comes back with NO LINK. The computer is not communicating with the code reader. Yesterday the car stalled while driving along and would not restart. It acted like a dead battery but the battery was not dead. Pulled the starter and the nose of the starter was broken off and jammed in the gears. I am beginning to think the ECM is sick and what happened yesterday is that while I was trying to start the engine it sent an incorrect command to the engine and fired a plug at the wrong time sending the engine in the wrong direction of rotation. That is the only thing I can imagine would break off the starter housing nose. I saw another posting here of someone who replaced three starters because the nose broke off and his problem started with "a load noise and a puff of smoke" I call that a backfire. I have ordered an new ECM.

hmm...broken starter gear. If one cylinder were to pre-ignite (one or more) before it reached top dead center...it can stop and engine pretty quick...and quite possibly break your starter. it does seem to point in the direction of your ECU...If you have no fuses blown and you still have no gages and no power from your OBD2 connector...maybe the computer did just take a dump. It would be nice to test another unit before paying the $$ however.