Folks,

First-time poster. In March we replaced my wifes Primera with a 2009 1.9Tdi Octavia. So far so good. Until last Monday morning, when the car wouldn't start. Or rather it would start and then die a couple of seconds later. We noticed that the dash is completely dead - no lights, no dial movement, nothing. Got the car taken to local dealer, who confirmed that our dash is dead, by swapping dash with another Octavia he had. (I've seens lots of reports on here of gradual instrument failures, but none of total failure which also means the car won't run.) Of course thanks to 'advances' in car design, the dash panel now also includes the immobiliser, so our car won't start because the dash panel is dead.

 

So, I understand I have 3 options...

1) 500 euro odd for the panel from Skoda

2) Send it to one of the repair places in the UK (180 euro odd for repair, or 50 euro inspection fee if they deem it non-repairable). I have seen both good and bad reports about BBA. Anyone recommend them, or anyone else (clusterrepair, or cartronix are 2 I can find online?)

3) DIY. If I could get the pin-out diagram for the connector on the back of the dash, (or a complete schematic), one of the electronics geniuses in my work will have a look at it. But of course he needs the pinout/schematic to see where to safely apply power. I have found pinout diagrams online for 2001 and 2004 model, but not for the newer one. Don't suppose anyone has such a thing?

Any other suggestions gratefully received.
Thanks.

Fin

BBA Reman are usually OK but they can't always fix it.

If multiple components are failing then you could get another failure later on. They can only fix problems that exist while they have the cluster for repair.

I had exactly the same fault a couple of weeks ago. I used Cartronix to repair my cluster, their service was excellent. They said the processor had failed.

Thanks for the feedback - especially good to know that Cartronix were able to fix the same fault! I was going to go with BBA reman, but might change my mind now!

Update - just for the next person who has a similar failure...

 

Actually, one of the electronics guys here in work managed to figure out which pins were for power, and got the dash powered up on the bench. We took it back to the garage, where we asked them to plug it back into the car...and it powered up and the car ran fine! Cue much headscratching...

 

Now we didn't actually do anything to 'fix' the PCB, other than look at it, so either there was some moisture in there that dried out, or in handling the board we managed to bump a solder connection which had become cracked, or the contact in the dash plug was bad...or something. Anyway on Monday the guy in work resoldered all the contacts on the back of the header on the PCB. He couldn't see any broken tracks, but he resoldered them anyway just in case. I gave both the pins in the PCB header and the contacts in the car plug a good dose of contact cleaner, and put it all back together. Have been driving the car all week since, and no problems to date. Fingers crossed...

Dry joints at the connector are not uncommon. Make sure the wiring harness that goes to the dash connector is not free to vibrate, as this is often the cause.

It is very useful to have feedback like this.