A6 C6 Driver information Display problem, Blank Screen fixed!

[gadget999]

Ive managed to fix my failed DIS on my 2008 A6 so I thought I would share with you all how I did it.
My screen had been playing up for a while and would be blank when cold but would come to life after 15mins or so, then recently it started flickering and then died completely.

Audi dealers want the best part of a £1,000 to fix it and there was no way I was going to pay that.

So I downloaded the audi instructions and I dismantled the dash and cluster in just over 20mins, and didnt damage or scratch a thing, it was much much easier than I had imagined.
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You will need a;
1/ hook tool,
2/ An 8mm & 5.5mm socket with a short extension bar
3/ small flatblade screw driver.
4/ Small Torx driver (cant remember the size)

Follow these instructions, the only bit I really struggled with was removing the air vents which is not clear in the instructions. There are 2 clips which you can see in the bottom of the vent, they need to be pulled upwards and then you can pull the vent out. The vents are a bit tricky but once you’ve done that the rest is a peice of cake.
Everything is held in place with strong spring clips so dont be frightened to use a little force to get things out!

Once you have it out you will need to send it to someone to fix it, I recommend a company called ACTRONICS 01206 849920, they charge £165 to fix the cluster and they were really great and very professional. As it turns out they tried to fix my unit but it kept blowing chips and they thought it had an unusual processor fault which was not fixable, however they refunded me the money staright away and send it back on a next day courier free of charge! So nothing lost there. Nice people
So I needed to source a second hand unit, I looked on ebay and they were priced from £160 to £250, (YOU MUST GET ONE WITH AN IDENTICAL PART NUMBER!!!!!)

In the end I used a breaker (Motors in Motion 01909 531537) Motors in Motion they had them in stock and it was only £100, it was with me the next day and was in near perfect condition, chuffed to bit I plugged it in but nothing seemed to work except to speedo and it said “Safe” in the information screen.
Turns out you need it coded, to make it work so I took it to a local Audi specialist who coded it for my car but it still had the “Safe” message in the DIS, they told me that only Audi can remove that. It is something called “Component protection”, so I called Audi and guess what, they wont touch a second hand cluster! <removed>

At this point I was panicing then by chance I found Audi VW Specialist in Harrow Audi VW Volkswagen Skoda Seat Independent Specialist London and they told me they could remove component protection from any Audi or VW, and would do 5 items on the car for only £70.
I called and spoke to the owner called Chris and he was great, they did it in 15 mins on Saturday morning and they decoded all the components in my car and now my cluster works perfectly.
Last thing I needed was the mileage correcting, I used a guy called Luke 07766220216 from High Wycombe Ive known him for years, good guy, he set the mileage as it should have been.

So to sum up you need to:
1. Remove cluster
2. Get unit fixed, if not buy second hand unit
3. Recode cluster(only for s/hand unit) £70
4. Remove component protection(only for s/hand unit) £70
5. Refit cluster.
6. Get Mileage corrected £80
7. Smile having not given Audi your hard earned money!!!

Just one thing, if you have a 2006 onwards then the car can still be driven without a cluster, before that date the immobiliser went through the cluster but Audi stopped doing that in 06 apparently.

So total cost for the replacement cluster was £320 but that could be reduced, if Id known I would just have got Chris at AudiVWSC to do all the electronic coding stuff but hey you live and learn!

Let me know if you have any questions
Good Luck!

[a8 tech]

or £45 http://www.codecard.lt/electronics/t.../prod_569.html

[furfurfur]

Very interesting posts! My DIS has stopped working in the mornings due to cold weather. It comes on very dimly first of all then goes blank (completely blank) for a few minutes. It will come on slightly brighter and then flick off until about 10-15 mins where it comes on and stays on.

If it's indeed the transformer that's going, how would I diagnose that? I'm handy with electronics and could probably replace the transformer easily enough, but I would struggle with the I.C that's above it in the picture that A8 tech linked to.

Any hints?

[humphrey999]

Luckily I have an aftermarket warranty on mine so when the DIS died in a puff of smoke (I'm not joking... scary!) on the A404 at 70mph I had the whole cluster replaced. As a bit of a bonus I got a facelift cluster with needle sweep etc! Apparently the old MMI 2G cluster was superceded by the 3G version which is also higher resolution.

The final stylish death was preceded by the failure to work in cold mornings etc over a period of 2 years just like other threads above. Unfortunately they do eventually die...

[madmcphil]

Had the same issue where mine would not turn on then fade in and fade out. I took mine to Cartronix in waterlooville. Highly recommend them. For £230 they dismantled the dash and replaced the lcd with a new one and put it all back together and gave me 2 years warranty on it. Very happy with the result.

[SimonC6]

Hi there,

I just wondered if this was still a fix or if another repair was available since its been a few years since last reply?

Many thanks