Instrument cluster display

[spannerrash]

Does anyone know if and where I could get hold of a replacement lcd screen for my instrument cluster?

Thanks Frank

[moltuae]

You could try contacting Sacer, as I mentioned here. Don't know if Nick had any luck with them but maybe they'll consider sourcing/stocking D2 displays if there's enough demand.

[spannerrash]

Thanks for the reply Mark, missed that post somehow.

[spannerrash]

So, after contacting multiple cluster, ecu, general electronics repair companies it's looking a bit grim for the centre (color) display. None that replied, 4 of them, can source a spare part. All indicating a lack of demand / rarity. I suspect they will all be sourcing from the same suppliers, Chinese probably, so it looks like they just don't exist. Yet anyhow.

I did get one interesting reply though offering something I didn't think was possible.
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"Hi Frank,

We are unable to source the LCD, however we can source a donor unit and transfer the data across.

If you wish to proceed with this, please provide the part number for the instrument cluster."
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For clarification I sent the below reply.
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" Hi, thank you for your reply.*


When you say you can transfer all the data across to another unit do you mean for the immobiliser and also the millage? My car is a relatively low mileage example and I can't afford to have any mileage discrepancies. It would adversely affect the value of the car."
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And their reply
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" Hi Frank,

​All data in the original unit is transferred to the donor unit."
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I'll cut a very long story short here. When I bought my car 4 years or so ago it came with a butchered cluster. In order to hide an ABS fault someone had prised out the led. I had the cluster fixed but was left with a parasitic drain. The battery would go flat within days. The pcb in the cluster was damaged.

After months of research I could find NO 100% guaranteed way of swapping the cluster and maintaining the correct mileage reading. In the end I resorted to getting a local electronics repair company to swap the immo / millage chips from my cluster to a spare I had bought. All worked perfectly and now no parasitic drain. Well, all was perfect until the first winter came around and I found that the spare cluster has a faulty screen.

Now I know this can be done on plenty of other clusters but I thought the Audi's of this era were heavily encrypted and so made it almost impossible to use a second hand unit and correct the millage to that of your original.

So, back to the point, is it possible for a professional company to clone the cluster? It really is a high risk strategy if they screw it up.

[MikkiJayne]

From what I know about Immobiliser 3, the data is held on an eeprom in the cluster (with matching data in an eeprom in the ECU). If the cluster eeprom can be read and written on the board like the ECU one can, it should be relatively straightforward to read all the data from your current cluster and write it back to a replacement, without harming the original.

I would say that's much lower risk than swapping the actual chip, since with a clone you still have the old working cluster.

[steamship]

Originally Posted by spannerrash

Now I know this can be done on plenty of other clusters but I thought the Audi's of this era were heavily encrypted and so made it almost impossible to use a second hand unit and correct the millage to that of your original.

Unfortunately you've been put through a process that wasn't required, as a secondhand instrument cluster can easily be altered to replicate the original one. Mine had the issue of the smaller displays having fully on pixels, which over time increased in number and hiding some of the digits, so I got a secondhand one from the forum sponsors and then took it to an Audi dealership who coded it into the car. That was four years ago and from memory I think I had to take all my keys with me.

[MikkiJayne]

Originally Posted by steamship

o I got a secondhand one from the forum sponsors and then took it to an Audi dealership who coded it into the car. That was four years ago and from memory I think I had to take all my keys with me.

Did you have to replace the keys or was the new cluster able to re-learn them? According to the documentation for Immo3, the key transponder is only able to be coded once so if the cluster is changed it needs new uncoded transponders