Instrument cluster display

[spannerrash]

Well, it's not looking good for the centre colour display repair.

The problem, just to remind you all is that the display takes a little while to warm up when first using the car. Especially bad in the winter. I think it's a fairly common problem with a few of us having the same issue.

I took a spare cluster I have to a local electronics repair shop near me today to investigate what might be going on. If you take a look at the attached picture you can see what looks like a small fluorescent tube. This is the "back light" for the display and from what we could gather it looks like this is the part that may be starting to fail.

Whilst the electronics shop seems to think we may be able to find a generic LCD light to replace this, the big problem is that to gain access, the front screen has to be removed first. This means de-soldering the 2 ribbon cables holding it in place. This is something the guys said was risky without having a spare screen at hand, just incase. A current minor annoyance could easily become a fully none working screen.

I will continue to look out for new screens from time to time but I think this is a "park it for now" situation and just live with it.