Hi all,

Hope somebody can give me an idea of where to go looking....

I have had my tdi 90 for 6 years now, relay 109 was replaced in the first year I had it.

Yesterday I had a new wierd fault:

Driving along, wife noticed that trip window in cluster had gone blank, then came back.

Switched off engine at end of journey - and cluster was wasn't showing, then slowly came back to life (this inidicates low battery normally - ie alternator has stopped charging).

Tried to start car but cluster totally died as the coils came on (again me thinks low battery)

Cluster came back up after a minute or so

Faffed around a bit - then went to lock the car, it locked and central locking worked (usually dies pretty early with low battery).

Thought thats odd, so re-opened car (central locking working again)

Put key in and succesfully started car....

So, I appear to have the worlds first intermittent flat battery

I will check all battery connections this morning but after that I'm baffled - any other ideas?.

Edited 9 September, 201015 yr by gregs

I am thinking dry joint near to a voltage regulator on dash cluster. There is one of the fuses you can pull to get the cluster to work (but trip information is forgotten when the ignition is turned off). The more expensive solution is to either repair the cluster - either by sending it off to be repaired, or having a stab at it yourself (you will know which end of the the soldering iron to hold....)

A lot of the earlier cars seem to be suffering from dash faults, fortunately my 2001 has not had this issue yet :-)

I am thinking dry joint near to a voltage regulator on dash cluster. There is one of the fuses you can pull to get the cluster to work (but trip information is forgotten when the ignition is turned off). The more expensive solution is to either repair the cluster - either by sending it off to be repaired, or having a stab at it yourself (you will know which end of the the soldering iron to hold....)

A lot of the earlier cars seem to be suffering from dash faults, fortunately my 2001 has not had this issue yet :-)

At 250k miles i do feel like i'm heading into fairly unknown territory....

I thought about cluster, but the bit that made me discount was that the central locking died with it (and then came back).

To add - car has run faultlessly today over 5 trips.

Edited 9 September, 201015 yr by gregs

Driving along, wife noticed that trip window in cluster had gone blank, then came back.

Switched off engine at end of journey - and cluster was wasn't showing, then slowly came back to life (this inidicates low battery normally - ie alternator has stopped charging).

Tried to start car but cluster totally died as the coils came on (again me thinks low battery)

Cluster came back up after a minute or so

Faffed around a bit - then went to lock the car, it locked and central locking worked (usually dies pretty early with low battery).

Thought thats odd, so re-opened car (central locking working again)

Put key in and succesfully started car....

In your initial post, unless I am being blind, I can't spot where you say the central locking failed?

In your initial post, unless I am being blind, I can't spot where you say the central locking failed?

My bad - when the cluster was down central locking also down.