my son's 2000 A4 instrument cluster has gone dead except for the oil temp gauge which pegs out when the ignition is on. The center LCD readout has been dead for a while but now all the gauges do not work. I have seen other references to this and we are going to send it off to BBA reman to fix, however I am hesitant to put the repaired cluster back in without knowing why it would fail in the first place. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Ask BBA if they know anything about it.

 

Just heard from BBA and the cluster is not repairable, the odometer shows all 9's so they can do nothing. Now the question is getting an entirely new cluster involves what in the way of resetting the odometer to reflect true mileage, disable code etc. Any help out there would be appreciated.

 

The mileage on instrument clusters cannot be changed once the cluster has ~60km or 100 miles on it. If the mileage is below that, it can be set to any value using a registered version of VAGCOM. It may be possible to move the cluster mileage higher (even if not below 100 miles) but I can't guarantee that.

The most expensive method is to buy a brand new cluster.

The much more affordable option is to buy a used cluster and have the EEPROM reset to zero so the mileage can be corrected.

Reflect Tuning provides this service for ~$50.

 

You can change the mileage with vag-tacho, I've done it just to see if it works. There's a way to get the software to work on a generic blue cable, but I can't seem to find it now.