VSS failures

[brentoleary]

I replaced the Vehicle Speed Sensor in my 94 about a year and a half and 300 miles ago (I know I need to drive it more).

I was driving last week to a car show and the speedometer dropped to 0, the service engine light came on, cruise stopped and the worst of all I lost secondaries, making the drive much less fun . I know the speed sensors are notorious for failures, but two failures in a few hundred miles seems pretty suspect.

When I replaced the old one it read open with a multimeter, but the shaft was in tact. When I pulled out the new one this morning, the shaft was sheared (assuming design intent to protect the gear), and a multimeter across the terminals reads as a short circuit. I presume this was more of an internal mechanical failure so on the surface just appears to be bad luck. All that to say - my plan is to order two VSS this time so I have one for a true spare.

Just curious if the experts had any thoughts on if there could be another issue causing my problem that I should look into while waiting for the new sensors to arrive.

pics below for the sake of posterity

vss1.jpg
vss2.jpg
vss3.jpg