Instrument cluster going dark

[Dutch Paddy]

I took delivery of my A6 Avant DSG Quattro on January 3rd. First impressions confirmed I ordered the right car for me. As I am in Ireland it is a 2.0 190 Ultra, the 3 ltr commanded another 5.5K and you get stung by insurance costs etc as well. To give you an idea my vehicle cost me just over 59K Euro...

So far I've been very happy with the car, engine and gearbox combination.

Shortly after I took ownership a discovered a rattle coming from the rear somewhere. I could get it to come in by simply putting 1400 revs on the engine, it would go away below and above that.

It was determined by the garage that it came from above the fuel tank. After 2 attempts the rattle was gone.

Back to my own topic, when driving off last Saturday, about 2 mins in to the journey, my instrument panel went black as if the power was cut, and came back on after about 2 secs. It must have been a power issue as the clock had also reset itself. I could simply drive on which I did. Going home later that night, the missus drove as I enjoyed a few pints of the black stuff, the same thing happened again, the whole instrument panel went dark, gauges, speedo, rev counter all just went.

I reported it to my local garage who supplied the car and I've now been asked to swing by the nearest official Audi Dealer in Sligo (2 hour drive) where the car originated :-(

Anyone seen this happening before?

I'll update this as I am finding out more.

[bbrown1664]

When running with just DRL's on, my 2012 s-line has an illuminated dash apart from when the cabin goes dark. At that point the dash fades to black too (only the illuminated parts and not the central screen). IMHO this helps prevent muppets driving around at night thinking they have their headlights on when they don't.
The fact you mentioned the clock got reset suggests there may be an issue with your car though.

[wildbore]

I have no suggestions on a solution to your problem but, if I were you, I would collect as much information as possible before making that lengthy round trip to be able to fully brief the dealership up front so as to minimise the possibility of a fruitless journey. For example, are you sure the clock reset itself? The clock time is fed to the Driver Information Panel from the MMI, so that would imply the MMI went down. That's quite possible, but there should be some evidence of that - for example, interrupted music, resetting the playlist to the first track, losing your stored stations, etc. Conversely, the MMI going down shouldn't cause the DIP to fail. Did the trip recorders reset themeselves? Did the speedo and rev counter fall to "0" or dd the needles stay put during the blackout? Etc.

As the vehicle doesn't seem to be unsafe to drive (presumably, you didn't lose exterior lights, engine power, steering, etc.), I would be tempted to drive it for a while longer and see if you can get a clearer picture of the full extent of the problem. Of course, if you were five minutes down the road from the dealership, you could make all of this their problem, but with that lengthy journey, I fear that it may take multiple visits if they don't get a proper understanding of the issue. (As an example, my MMI repeatedly crashed during the first year of ownership. I reported it and when I got to the dealership they had already ordered in a complete head unit (£3.5K!!) ready to swap out if necessary - it might be good if your dealer has all the possible parts in up front. I find that, without some detailed problem description, dealers tend to treat the first visit as an exploratory one and only then order in the parts).

[Dutch Paddy]

As it is such a long journey that is exactly what I'm doing. My local garage brokered the deal with the nearest Audi Dealer which unfortunately for us since the recession is in Sligo. As I am in Sligo from time to time for work we agreed that I will call in whenever it suits me in the near future as long as the issue doesn't get worse.

I can confirm that the speedo and rev counter dropped back to zero but we had no music playing at the time as we were literally 1 or 2 minutes in to our journey. It happened that quick that I/we cannot even remember if the MMI screen went off, if definitely did not retract and come back up.

The issue hasn;t shown itself since last Saturday so maybe it resolved itself...

Update;

So far issue of everything going dark in instrument panel has not returned. All is good except for the additional noise on cold tick-over