Octavia 90 TDI Intermittent Instrument panel

[cheezemonkhai]

Well i know somebody who does this sort of soldering work all the time and if people have a circuit diagram and don't mind paying her for her time plus parts might well be able to work out faults and fix the things.

Last time she saved my mates neck when he washed his car keys by swapping the chips over so it didn't need reprogramming

[soviet]

Well i know somebody who does this sort of soldering work all the time and if people have a circuit diagram and don't mind paying her for her time plus parts might well be able to work out faults and fix the things.

Last time she saved my mates neck when he washed his car keys by swapping the chips over so it didn't need reprogramming

Hi Cheezemonkhai,

This person that you know sounds very good, but as for a circuit diagram, down to componant level, they don't exist in the open world as we know it, unless someone knows otherwise.

I even tried a place in America which advertised as having diagrams, but it ended up being a red herring as it was just an ELSA WIN dvd with absolutely no info. for my car on it, leave alone a cluster circuit diagram. I did get my money back though, after proving to the guy that there was nothing of use on it, which I already knew.

Many people on this forum have asked in the past, if any body can, or has got their hands on one, but unfortunately they do not exist, except at the factory I suppose.

We could always send a Soviet spy to the factory, and get some snaps. Now where did I put my little camera that I used for concorde?

Soviet:thumbup:

[Doml]

I had a similar problem - speedo dead, fuel gauge wavering, but temp & rev OK. Read through this & several other posts & decided to check fuses 7 & 15 first. Both OK, but very dirty terminals. I cleaned them off, put the same fuses back in & the speedo seems to be fine again. We'll see how it goes...

[copycat999]

great thread pulled fuse and all seems ok

[loskie]

Mine went too > I removed fuse no15(speedo etc worked, clock/trip memory lost) and ran the car for a couple of weeks with no problems. Replaced fuse 15 a couple of weeks ago and touch wood it all works fine again!!

[Pimpmyskodia]

sounds to me that the skoda instrument pannels are pretty naff, still got my electrical problem, no dash lights, so at night its like earlier mentioned, driving blind.

[cheezemonkhai]

Quite often it's dry joints. This affects Audi TT more than the skoda, but can affect all VAG cars from that time.

[ryan pat]

Thanks for the info on the intermittent gauges.Just of to pull the No.15 fuse I will let you know how I got on.

[Deeferduck]

First off, thanks for the remedy folks!! Greatly appreciated, as you also saved me

[scm5arg]

I've had fuse 15 (continuously) out for about 6 months now, no adverse effects.

Apart from leaving my lights on and draining the battery when I was due to leave for the airport at 5am.

I can confirm that removing fuse 15 DOES kill the lights-on warning alarm. Better get me a soldering iron...

[Tonyt]

After 9 months with the fuse out and the dials working most of the time, the dials are now less reliable.

I am considering sending the unit to Cluster Repairs for repair at a cost of

[smudge]

Heres my experience of checking the TLE ic. removing the instrument cluster ( Guage )

Pulled the steering wheel out and low

Removed fuse 15 to take power off ot the instrument cluster.

Removed the screw caps and screws from the surround. They are the top underneath.

Pulled out the top of the surround easily.

Used a credit card to push in the clips and pull the surround on the sides and bottom left and right.

There is a cloth cover over the steering column which is held to the surround by plastic push fit fasteners.Use aa screwdriver to lever this down and pop it off.

The lower surround in the middle is the worst. I found that you need to push the surround back to the top as a loose fit to take off the strain on the lower clips above the column.

With thumb and forefinger of both hands,grip and squeeze and pull the lower surround out.Then when unclipped the surround should come away ,bottom first.

Phew.

Undo the two top securing screws for the cluster and pull forwrd.Unclip LH & RH loom. The small hinge clip needs to be raised up and this pushes the plug out.

Now you've got the cluster in your hands.

Remove the LH RH screws and unclip the clips round it to release the front cover.

Unclip the two clips beside the screw holes to take off the back and to access the PCB.

Take an small electronic 25W soldering iron and some solder and reflow the joints of the

TLE 4276g.I did one pin at a time and waited for the heat to come out the IC. If it gets too hot it could fail.

I put it all back together ' refitting is reversal of removal ' !!

Dont forget the fuse.

Thanks to Csblazso for the idea. I just thought I'd add some info on how to do this fix.

Hope it helps.

[Tonyt]

Thanks for the feedback Smudge, I may buy a 25w soldering iron and give this a try. Is the TLE4276r a dark blue chip? Best regards. Tony.

[smudge]

Hi Tony

What you need is an iron from maplins like this one.

Maplin > 30W Soldering Iron

I used Maplin > 48W LCD Screen Solder Station=

at 350C ,but its a bit more expensive.The trick is to have a fine tip to be able to reflow the solder joints and not create a bridge across the pins.

The IC is has 5 pins on one side and a large terminal on the other . The TLE 4276 chip is black beside what I think is the black 'left your lights on buzzer'. Its clearly marked up . Well you might need a magnifying glass. About 10mm square.

Also to be on the safe side use an earth strap

Maplin > Anti-Static Computer Wrist Strap

and plug

Maplin > Antistatic Bonding Plug

when handling the PCB. And as I say reflow one pin at a time by adding little more solder with flux in it. standard electronic pcb component solder ( Maplins again ! ) The chip should be able to take the heat of all pins being done at once but I like to play it safe

I should work as a Maplin salesman!

Other points

You might think that the connection looks good but as you are this far ,reflow anyway

Try checking fuse 15 for tarnishing and clean it up first. Might do the trick .

The bottom part of the surround is the worst bit. I nearly gave up here , but realised that to get these clips undone there mustn't be any tension on them. I struggled for 20mins with the top part out and pulled forward.Wasn't until I pushed the top in loose was I able to squeeze and unclip the bottom.

Did mine yesterday so hope its fixed.

Hope this helps and again thanks to Csblazso for the fix:thumbup:

[Tonyt]

Many thanks for your help and detailed instructions which is exactly what I need. Now all I need is to pluck up the courage to undertake soldering for the first time. I have taken the insturment panel out several times to spray it with electircal contact cleaner which has worked well in the past and prolonged its use. Unfortunately, the contact cleaner no longer works its magic, so, it's either an attempt at soldering or sending off to Cluster Repairs or forking out big time for a new panel. Thanks again Smudge (and Csblazso) greatly appreciated and thanks for the Maplin links.

[smudge]

Its back! Last night this happened 3 times. switch on instruments ok . startup . went to zero! fourth time switch on waited 10s then started up . All OK . Now tonight , switch igniton on , failed . started up and drove off and put the cooling fan on to move air through the dash as it was hot sat in the sun. 3miles in and they start working . I may replace that IC completely as it does seem to be triggered by heat and maybe the regulator is after all these years a bit stressed. If I do I want to fix a heat sink to the top . Let you know how I got on.

Smudge

[DEL80Y]

Many thanks to all posters as i have helped a customer out within 3 minutes off logging on and solving his problem which i will do tomorrow again many thanks Briskoda

[smudge]

Hi. Did you fix it? I've just realised that there are two IC's to solder up

So its back out with the dash later on. Did think about changing the tle4276g but can only source a 1000 at a time ! Cheap though at

Edited 9 July, 2008 by smudge

[cheezemonkhai]

Hmm if you know the parts that need changing and where they are I know a woman who would order up 1000 of them and change the parts for a small fee.

[mowerman]

Just a quick thankyou for all the posts.

I removed my dash and resoldered the connections. All seems ok for the moment.

The only problem was my wobbly hand.

Tom

[smudge]

Well, It seems I have a intermittant problem. I decided to leave the surround out and see what happens just in case, with the fuse out. I noticed that on switch off the dials would stay where they where until switch on. Then the tank gauge would crawl back down before poping back up. So I tagged some wires to the larger regulator to get some more info. With the fuse out there is no 12v getting to the input. 5v appears on ignition switch on which I think comes from the other smaller regulator. Next with the fuse out, I soldered a 12v feed to the larger reg input. Now it seems to work normally when it works!

So still investigating.I need to tag some wires to the smaller regulator to see if its working ok . let you know how I get on.

[Deeferduck]

I have used the excellent advice given here and had taken out fuse 15 awhile back to solve the issue. I had the car serviced recently and now the dials have given up the ghost, rolled over and died! Does anyone here think that the resoldering fix will still work, or is the instrument panel ****ed?

[smudge]

I've soldered around both regulators and added wires so I can check the output voltage

during the problem. Each regulator puts out 5v even when the problem occurs. So now I'm not so sure. It is interesting that my troubles started after a major service but that could be a coincidence. Does anyone know how the needles of the dials come off as I want to get to the other side of the PCB ?

[lytham2]

Hi All,

I have a similar problem with my Speedo on my Octavia Classic 1.9 SDI 2003

Its only just started, last night,.

I run the car as a taxi BTW. On my way home last night, I had to pass through some heavy flooding . .

Suddenly the Speedo packed in . at least became intermittent.

As the car is a taxi, my taxi meter is driven of the Speedo! - not a happy situation . . .

All other instruments are ok.

Might this be a problem with the regulators as well?

Or has water got into the pickup sensor???

Regards To All

John - Carlisle UK

[smudge]

Hi John

Looks like the sender device for the speedo is at fault. Someone should be able to define it better than me.

I've not progressed further with this problem yet but I want to get the cluster unit fully apart and trace the circuit of the Temp gauge until I find the common feed for all the dials. Just need to know how the needles of the dials come off.

Good luck