[V8] dash lights

[Roger M. Woodbury]

I had the same syndrome in my '90 V8 Quattro.  The dash lights would simply
go out as I cruised along.  The car was tornado red with black interior, and
when the lights went out, it was severely dark....VERY BAD dark, actually.
I would smack the top of the instrument panel and sometimes the lights would
come back on, and sometimes not.

I took the car to my favorite dealer and they told me that the problem was
in the rheostat that controls the brightness of the interior instrument
lighting. According to them at that point, EVERY thing goes through the
rotary knob.  The fix according to Audi, was a new instrument pod at $900
less some smidgen for the core....The rotary knob was NOT available
separately.

My "fix" was to buy a rotary knob assembly from a dismantler in Colorado, if
memory serves.  I took the part in to the Audi dealer and asked them to
install it...which they did.  It seems that I paid the dealer about $55 to
do the job, which took about forty five minutes while I stood there watching
and talking with the mechanic who did the job.  

I was told that the '90 V8's had a LOT of trouble with this, and that there
were a LOT of clusters replaced under warranty.  I was also told that some
of the used '90s running around had a LOT more miles than the odo showed as
a result.

FWIW

Roger