My cluster needs to be replaced. Could it be anything else?

it definitely Could be something else namely System grounding....which by 1990 is a disgrace, because with every start comes a layer of burnt metal until there isn't very good conductivity....especially for the instruments in the dash panel....what you must do is buy a NEW battery....clean the connection point to where the 1/0 cable connects to the chassis/ground...use a coarse wirebrush to insure a solid 300 cold cranking amps potential~ both the lug and real estate where the lug was~ okeye-doakay~

this is called POINT ZERO on an electrical diagram or WP (work point) from where every device must find ground~

So does your answer change if I had this same problem last time I tried to get my car smogged? Last time he just kind of looked the other way and passed me. Is the battery connection point something the 1990 models have a problem with?

Apparently the lights haven't cared to work properly for a while. Could it be the connections are just terrible? Although my mechanic got into the panel/cluster(?) and really worked with it.

Thanks. I'll give that a try. Saves me more money and time than going through with replacing a cluster.

okay, I misunderstood....doesn't have to be 2000 or 1999 or any year...the point is corrosion finds it's way into violating the connection and needs to be brushed off to insure good grounding of all components that need a steady ground which if speedos a flippin' will steady it's nerves with good ground....like a shot of whiskey~

if you took a small alligator clip with a wire that leads to the battery (-) clamp or wire....and connected it to the frame of your troubled instrument panel, would 'come alive' as if it were bench tested~

That's usually how I settle my nerves....the whiskey; not grounding down my skin with a wire brush. Thanks again.

really bad, in like Wisconsin and the "rust-belt" where they shovel ROCK salt off of trucks onto the roadway and it lodges in your chassis and violates the connection....especially salt as this element conducts...not insulates the electric charges~

jeez, no one is asking you to hurt your skin...we aren't using "brillo" pads here, besides you could wear gloves if you were kinda dainty~ clean off the corrosion with a brush....ta da~

too easy and don't cost nothin'-----jeez, life is good, ainahey~?