I have just bought a 1995 a4 1.8 se.

When starting the car the rev counter shows idling at 3-4th revs although engine speed is fine. After approx 1 min of starting the car the water temp warning light starts to flashing and remains on, even though water level is ok. On start up the temperate guage goes full up to above maximum(engine cold) then gradually goes down while driving untill it's as though the gauge is not working, but engine temp/water temp is fine. The speedo is also faulty as it reads extermley high approx double the correct speed, the milage indicator also doesn't work, just vaguely shows def? was unsure if this was a code. Fuel, oil temp and battery voltage guages all seems to work ok. The car seems to drive fine,could all these problems be related?

Any help would be much appreciated,

chris.

 

i certainly hope so... sounds like you have some electrical problems

 

Id say something inside the cluster is shorted. However i would check all grounds and powers. A look at a wiring diagram may lead you to a problem. All those gauges probably have some wiring in common.

 

Well, if all else fails, sell your speedometer to one of those Honda tuners. It's their only hope of a decent 0-60. And now they can finally break 110MPH!!

In all seriousness though, it sounds like a wiring problem. Atleast you get something, I remember way back when I had a dodge neon with "78,000" miles on it. Turns out the whole frigging dash had connection problems and would simply shut off after 10 seconds of running it. Though thatwas the best high-speed roll over ever, 110MPH (down a mountain) and barrel rolled it. Ah, to be young and stupid again.

Is it an analog or digital ODO? Are the backlights working? Dim? Anything? I'm trying to think back to my electrical days, what the hell would cause the speedo/tach to read high?

 

Its a digital display, just cant read it. Back lights are fine, dim working fine. Everything seems ok except the speed revs and temp. I know alot of mechanics, im in engineering myself, everyone seems to think its to do with an earth probelm. Ive got the dash stripped totally out, everything seems fine no loose connections. Ive had the cluster out and checked the printed circuit for corrosion, everything seems ok. I searched this site alot, but cant seem to find the exact same problem, although the clusters seem quite a common problem on audi's.

I might buy a new cluster if i knew it was sure to fix it, but is it just as simple as plug a new one in, do they not have to match your ECU and key?