I mother has a 96 A4 (purchased used this year) and needed to have the A/C condensor replaced. The repair apparently involves removing the dash to access it. She lives in an area with no local Audi dealer so she took it to a reputable local garage. When the mechanic went to reinstall her dash and plugged it in the mechanic tells me the guage cluster went nuts. They ended up purchasing a guage cluster from a junk yard and installed it. While everything now works, her mileage reads 98,000 miles when her car has 45,000. The garage tells me that calls to Audi have not been successful and they are not willing to help out. They are now telling me that the dash that was in the car was rebuilt at some time previously as the numbers on the guage cluster end in an "X". Can anyone offer some advice on a fix?

 

Yes, have the garage that broke her cluster buy a new one from Audi and have it programmed with the correct mileage.

Otherwise take them to small claims court.

 

If the dash was replaced before, how can you be sure that the car you bought actually had 45k miles. That is awfully low for a 96, that didn't raise any eyebrows? Also, messing around with the mileage could get noticed by the DMV and put into the cars Carfax.