This! Had dad's 2005 Buick LeSabre after he passed. So 11 years in and with 80,000 miles on it, the needles on the gages started to have sword fights - completely whacked. Got a pic of the instrument cluster registering 120 mph when I was stopped at an intersection level borked. Asked the dealership: $800 for a new instrument cluster - plus labor. Hard nope.
YouTube revealed it was the stepper motors on the gages, and that a parts kit complete with mini soldering iron could be had for ~$20. Watched that vid pbly 10 times, tore everything apart, replaced parts, put it back together, and... It worked! I was amazed!
My only regret was I opted to not replace some of the tiny led light bulbs in the cluster even though they were included with the kit. Because it was literally 2 or 3 days after my repair that one of the originals blew out...
Good stuff!
I've only had to take apart a dash once and it wasn't fun. Was hard to get everything back together snug.
My prime gearhead days were spent working on mid 1960s-early 70s US iron, where going into a dashboard was considered madness. The dash on that Buick was all modular parts. The modules were simple to remove/replace, and the innards varied. Far cry from those of my youth.
Pretty eye opening really. As long as you're not jacking with the computer systems, it's not bad. Of course 20 model years later it's all a frightmare.