Driving with bad speed sensor

[moliva1568]

I have a 2004 dodge ram 1500. my speed sensor is shot and i drive it daily. my abs,emergency brake, and check engine light are on. i've already verified the code as the speed sensor. money is tight for me so fixing my car is unfortunately not a priority right now. can i continue to drive it like this with causing damage to my car (engine,transmission, car as a whole)? i don't care about speeding tickets cuz the speedometer doesn't work. i can talk my way out of a ticket a heck of a lot easier than out of a mechanic bill.

[crazys182003]

well the speed sensor only costs $40-50 at a dealership. you can do the labor yourself (it literally takes maybe 5 mins and is only one plug in conenction and one bolt). I would personally change the sensor b/c there might be soemthing else that could be causing it to go bad over and above the sensor that you can't diagnose before changing the sensor. My sensor went bad when my clutch packs (only in a Posi rearend) broke and then they screwed up my sensor. I only found that out b/c when I replaced my sensor I still had the same codes. You don't want to be driving your ram with broken clutch packs. That could lead to a total rebuild of the reared end. But to answer your question you can drive without your sensor but it will screw up your abs brakes. you won't have abs until its fixed b/c they use the same sensor.

[moliva1568]

i appreciate the help. I had read that changing the sensor wasn't too hard but i'm not mechanically inclined so i was hesitant to do it. i'll give it a shot now knowing that it's a simple bolt and plug connection. i definitely don't want to make anything worse. i thing i've been noticing though, when i'm driving on the highway, it feels like i'm hauling something and it doesn't ever get into 5th gear from what i can tell. it seems like it's going up in the rpm's and not changing when it used to. it's as if i'm never coasting. i hear the exhaust the whole time. any ideas?

[crazys182003]

I'm not too sure on that problem as I have a manual tranny and can never hear my exhaust (I keep my music too loud). You might want to check your fluids and make sure they are topped off that could be an easy start. Sorry can't help anymore on that I just don't know.

[dhrith]

5min and $25 at autozone/murrays etc etc
Shouldn't screw anything up, drove without mine for 2 years, miss my mileage calculations though. I do have a 3-4 shift problem though, don't think it's primarily the sensor, since I drove a good year before that popped up. But don't believe the lack of sensor input is helping it.