I am replacing mine because I can't see the lights anymore, and I don't have the courage to do the soldering and taking apart thing. Anyone know what other years will work for this part? I have a 96 and most say on 96 & 97 work in that year, others I see advertise 96-99 are the same?

 

96's use a very specific model number that ends in H, they are not the same as the 97 to 99's. Theres a thread in this list from about 2 years ago that discusses this topic. I bought a couple of the 97-99 one size fits all and could never get it to work correctly in my sons 96. You can replace just the bulbs in a 96 HVAC controller, they are just like the dash lamps in the instrument cluster, 1.1W and 2W. They are discussed in that thread as well. If the solder joints are going bad (lights go on and off when you press the buttons), that can be repaired as well.

Found the other thread, its really hard to find BTW


https://www.audiforums.com/forum/b5-...arging-170258/

 

I just did the full monty on my HVAC control.
1. Yes, 1996 is a unicorn year. I found what was advertised as a 1996 unit on eBay, but it is the L version (1997) instead of the D, so it worked only partially and threw all sorts of error codes when I ran a VCDS scan. (You can tell by inspection, because the 1996 are the only ones with removable light bulbs.)
2. The resolder procedure is not difficult, and it fixed mine completely. You probably have a friend who can handle it.
3. Shop around for the light bulbs -- I found a 5 for $12 deal.