bought myself my first octy last week drove like a dream the 200 miles home- well chuffed so much power from a 1.9tdi- very impressed (p*sses over my old focus)

slowly sorting out all the little faults with the car (i knew all upon buying, so was happy to pay less..)

the faults included-

1) rear passenger door jammed (deadlocked?) shut- 1 s/h catch and this seems sorted

2) water leaks into passenger side- after removing all the door panels and replacing the knackered membranes im kinda hopping that this is sorted, although im still trying to work out if they're still leaking. :S

3) central locking not working at all.. this is the one im trying to work through- rather than resolve the issue, a previous owner decided to disconnect everything :S the cables had snapped on the n/s/f window regulator, so that had been disconnected.. gonna replace cables, get a s/h convenience unit (no life in mine) and try checking all the connections..

4) speedo works when it wants to- not really too stressed by this one as the gps reads speed, although tried removing fuse 15- that cured it for a day, dont really want to replace cluster as dont want to lose recorded (low) mileage.. is there anyway of repairing these (someone mentioned somewhere about dry solder joints?) :S

5) front arb links and bushes knocking- new bushes 21mm and links ordered

6)intermittent fault with n75- s/h one coming soon

quite a list i spose- although i got the car cheap because of faults and have loads of time on my hands at mo (made unemployed) although not the cash to splash out.. so we'll see how it goes

the membranes solved the water leaks

Regarding number 4, there are companies out there that will fix the existing cluster. BBA Reman is one, you send them the cluster, they fix it and send it back. You get the same one back, with the same recorded mileage and immo setup.

http://www.bba-reman.com/catalogue/DetailedProduct.aspx?DetailedProduct=1028

Changing the cluster is not simple, because the immobiliser is built into the cluster and you need the 4 digit code from both yours and the donor cluster to match the ECU to the cluster. These codes are usually lost over the years, making a swap very difficult.

Regarding number 4, there are companies out there that will fix the existing cluster. BBA Reman is one, you send them the cluster, they fix it and send it back. You get the same one back, with the same recorded mileage and immo setup.

http://www.bba-reman.com/catalogue/DetailedProduct.aspx?DetailedProduct=1028

Changing the cluster is not simple, because the immobiliser is built into the cluster and you need the 4 digit code from both yours and the donor cluster to match the ECU to the cluster. These codes are usually lost over the years, making a swap very difficult.

any ideas on prices for bba? they seem to avoid giving one.. :no:

I thought for (4) it was just a dry joint on one of the voltage regulators? I did see a link to a website which covered the fault - in German. Might be worth checking that out before shelling out potentially lots of money for someone to remake a couple of joints. Obviously if that does not fix it and you still have to send it off you have only lost a little of your time....

yeh- i heard that its usualy caused by bad soldering joints, funny enough just found a tech help on here for it- http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/152468-instrument-cluster-repair/

so, im gonna strip it out and resolder all the joints and see how that goes..

yeh- i was a bit concerned that bba wouldnt give a price, even a rough estimate would have been something.. :S

let you know how i get on with the resoldering..

With ref to the membranes. Same here, the glue at the bottom had vanished a they were free in the wind.

Edited 17 January, 201115 yr by BigRedDog

yeh- i heard that its usualy caused by bad soldering joints, funny enough just found a tech help on here for it- http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/152468-instrument-cluster-repair/

so, im gonna strip it out and resolder all the joints and see how that goes..

yeh- i was a bit concerned that bba wouldnt give a price, even a rough estimate would have been something.. :S

let you know how i get on with the resoldering..

well, stripped out the cluster yesterday eve, stripped it all down- the solder on the large voltage regiulator was all orange/yellow- made me think there was a poor connection.. resoldered, checked all connections.. replaced into car.. driven 10 miles and gauges are working fine- got a decent sized journey later so will have a better idea.. but so far, all good

thanks to guzzigeezer for the how to- very informative link here-http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/152468-instrument-cluster-repair/