Freedom, re; reflowing the solder joints, Could you please send me a link to the YouTube vids? Cannot seem to find them, probably not using the right words in the search.

Also, yesterday the fuel gauge suddenly reads nil. I know there is fuel in there. And the coolant warning beeps and flashes sometimes, although I know there is enough there. The whole electronic system seems to be going haywire.....

Ta v. Much.

I really do appreciate the time everyone has taken to help me, feeling much heartened. If I can find a YouTube video and show it to my son, maybe we can solve this!!

Sepulchrave, I have stopped my pointless and futile efforts, you are right that I was simply draining the battery and getting nowhere. I will follow sensible advice and hope for success.

It's sounding like you have the start of a dash cluster failure to me.

My son is going to come over tomorrow and see if he can help, all words of wisdom and ideas very much appreciated.

Will post results

Good luck!

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Thank you, needing it!

Make sure he leaves his gas torch at home!

Ha ha! He has just fixed some tricky electric issues in his bmw, so I live in hope....

Good to see that you are keeping positive!  Good luck, I'd stop making flippant comments now!

ECSTATIC!!! My gorgeous lovely son came over, and thanks to the helpful guidance provided on here he took the instrument cluster off and found hairline cracks in solder for immobiliser and fuel gauge. All ok for now ....

I am now back in love with my car, and really hope it is well and truly fixed.

Cluster was obviously second hand, so perhaps a problem that can reoccur.

Thank you everyone who took the time to talk to me about this issue, I was really in despair!

It's caused by crappy lead-free solder, it's far less resistant to fatigue than the good old barely toxic stuff and needs higher temperatures to melt.

Yes you are correct there. My son soldered the bits, then had to do it again with a higher heat as first fix failed...delicate balance as he did not want to damage any other parts of the board.