As usual, out here in the middle of the pond, I have a different approach.
DO. IT. YOURSELF.
F'rinstance, after decades with a non-working odometer, the guy I go to yearly for a safety check (a necessity for continuing registration) noticed that my mileage didn't change year-for-year. His comment provided the impulse to take out the speedo and clock and carefully go into the odometer bits. I've done a few 2002 units, and the coupe odo is the same-same, all over again. Take out the axle on which the number wheels are mounted, slip in a bit of wire as you withdraw so they don't go all over the place, peen the shaft gently, and as they say, assembly is the reverse. It works.
I gently took off the speedo needle using two spoons. When the time came, I popped the needle back into place like it was meant to be ... which it was.
I went into the speedo of my '85 K100RS several times with moderate results. Used the gears from odometergears.com, good stuff. It seems that 80s-vintage BMW speedos and odos had gears that turned to cheese, but we knew that.
I'm no wizard, no effing-A mechanic, but if it's busted, there's little to lose by having a go at it. Knowing when to stop helps, but odometer repair is nothing that anyone possessed of a little couldn't do. If I did it, so can just about anyone. Checkbook-restoration types probably checked out by now.
2250457 had a clock that hadn't worked since I got the car some 20-plus year ago. I also came across an older, and different, coupe clock (one mechanical-electrical, one fully electrical). I got one working by reading about their inner workings, then messing with it. You don't have to pay big-azz money for someone else to do it. The resources of this list are revealed using the Search function and some reading online will bring you to a state of knowledge that the above-mentioned mechanical sympathy, patience, good light with simple hand tools, enable you to own the repair. And here's the important part: when you own the repair, you own the car. Read "Shop Class as Soulcraft" by Matthew Crawford and be the master of your possessions, rather than letting your possessions master you. A good deal of "like what you have" rather than "have what you like" enter consideration. Beware of Maya...
I will say that there have been things that have busted around the place whose bits end up in the trashcan. In those events I am no better off, nor worse, than when I started.
Fixed my 1985 dishwasher the other night, just a cleaning of the door microswitch seems to be all that was required. It's a Whirlpool, supposedly a Hobart design, badged as Kenmore, I read online that the basic design is excellent and worthy of keeping going. So I did and it works. Guess all the Black Friday sales will have to do without me! New dishwashers sell from $300 to $2200. On craigslist you can get one free.
Fixed the microwave oven. Beware that one, older models have a capacitor that can kill you stone dead if you aren't careful. Again, one of two simple door microswitches was bad. $3.25 part, not $350 oven. This was a Sanyo, they don't even make microwave ovens any more. It too dated from 1985, but it was part of a built-in, and replacement would have required replacing the oven too, so in I go, out I came. Not as good as sex but still rewarding.
Now if only I could do Zenith 35-40 INAT carbies...
Y'know, over the years I've been on this list, there seems to be (and this might be just me) a creeping elitism whereby coupe owners rely less and less on their own abilities. There are still some masters online, they are readily identified. But with rising values of surviving cars, owners seem less inclined to do their own work. The cars certainly aren't any different, so it's not a different skill set. Maybe different owners than I started with. Was a BMWCCA member for 20 years or so, but their direction, and my dedication to 2002's and 3.0CS left me in a shrinking group. I hope that doesn't happen here as well.
