[V8] dash lights

[dsaad at icehouse.net]

Personally, I always have the dash lights fully "on" anyway - so have little
need for the dimmer. If you are like me, and either can't find a good
replacement part or don't want to spend a bunch of money on so trivial a
problem, you could simply jumper out the dimmer switch.

If it is in fact just a rheostat with two wires on it, all you have to do is
connect the two wires together - by-passing the switch.
If it is an electronic dimmer (I don't think it is btw) you could still jumper
it out - but you would have to figure out the wiring first.

Dave

Quoting "Roger M. Woodbury" <rmwoodbury at adelphia.net>:

> 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
>
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