Swap cluster US to CDN

[Jayman]

Hello everyone,
I am finally considering getting an E36 (1998 328i). It was sold as a US car but is now registered in Canada. The cluster shows miles in large numbers and kilometers in smaller numbers on the speedo. Is there a US to metric switch somewhere to change this over to kilometers?
Also looking on the auto trader and Ebay for pics I see Canadian cars have kilometer numbers only with no mile numbers at all.
Anyway if someone can give me options who may have done this before or knows how to would be great. I'm hoping to get away with changing just the sticker thing on the gauge that the numbers are printed on and to still have it give me accurate KPH.
Thanks all

[WarNox]

do you use metrics in canada? i always thought it was the same as the US. if u do end up changing the "faceplate" in the cluster, won't your trip mileage thing still be in miles?!

[chuckz]

yeah all canadian cars use kph instead of mph. everything is metric here yet
as a toolmaker, i use inches not centimeters.
getting an instrument cluster from a wrecker is probably going to be your
best bet, since changing your speedo painted numbers wont change your odometer.
good luck!

[Jayman]

I was under the impression that the dealer has a tool to change everything over from US to metric. If I put in a whole new cluster I was wondering if it will register correctly on the speedometer.

[WarNox]

no it wont register. there will be a red dot displayed by your odometer reading because your car computer and your cluster won't have the same mileage reading. i think you can get the dealer to fix this for you though.

[Teh Prof]

My 1997 528i was originally a Canadian car and had the same cluster as when it was sold there--with mph in big numbers and kph in little ones.

You can just get a Canadian faceplate and swap it out. Hit a few buttons on the obc and everything will be displayed in metric, with no dealer input necessary.

Alternatively, get a Canadian cluster and have the dealer set the miles in the cluster to the same as the car's computer.

[polaris448]

i remeber reading a thread on changing the speedo to km. i am almost positive that your current cluster (odometer) will read in km even if you don't have an OBC. i remeber seeing the option when i went into the diagnostics on the cluster the test the guages and seeing other things like top revs. unfortunately i can't remeber where i got the diagnostics guide from...google it

[Jayman]

I'll have a look, and thanks evryone.