Well, it happened again.
Car was parked for a week or so while I was out of town,
and there was a big storm. On return the car starts runs, everything works, but no instrument panel at all.
Have had similar problems twice previously and once the car dried out everything was back to normal. But it's been over a week now and still no instrument panel.
Check fuse #42 and it's fine.
Any other suggestions?
Hoping it magically comes back to life like the other 2 times.
Funny, but of course, in Cali if they can't see if the CEL is on or not, you would fail smog as well as them not being able to read the mileage.

 

That doesn't sound good I will pray to the car gods for you!!
I assume you have checked the normal things like front and rear sam and other places for water or signs or water?

 

Check for clogged drains, especially near the driver's side windshield wiper well. Water builds up in there and eventually runs down into the fuse box. I often had the same problem with my Sport Coupe.

 

Did you check your SAMs yet?

 

if your drive side floor mat is wet, you have water damage to the electrical it can be repaired.. you will have to purchase a new CANBUS connector as the old one is dead..

looks like this: https://www.google.com/search?q=merc...No76RvA_ARN9M:

 

So I clicked on the link that you posted and it gives me a bunch of general information on can bus. I'm not sure where I should be looking. I will say that I have some water incursion mostly through the rear hatch. the weather stripping is all just fine and I really don't understand why it leaks but it does. I even tightened the latch and it still leaks. absolutely everything on the car works but the instrument panel is still dead. and of course the headlights stay on all the time. I read a post where they said if you drive the vehicle more than about 60 miles even if you get the instrument panel to work again it's not going to show a mileage. And I do know I've already driven it more than 60 miles unfortunately. I really do tend to doubt that it is the instrument panel itself, but I did notice with some interest what appeared to be some dried water marks on the outside of the plastic housing. but opening it up I did not see any damage to the boards or any apparent water intrusion to the actual circuit board inside of the instrument panel. the fact that it happened after a big storm it must have to do with the canbus.
Just for ****s and giggles I put a heat gun on the circuit board in case there was perhaps a cold solder joint but that did not accomplish anything. I also read of another guy who had disconnected his battery and then reconnect it and everything worked. So I disconnected overnight and reconnected no change. I recently just paid my registration for the year and fortunately I do not need a smog this year. But if this is still not fixed by next year I probably will not even be able to get the car re registered, well cross that bridge when I get to it.
The last time this happened to my mechanic really had no idea what to do because when they connect the star system it basically won't communicate with most of the modules in the car and they are Flying Blind on where the problem might be. I really need to fix this!

 

If you are certain that the weatherstripping is ok, next suspect is those plastic rivets that hold the paneling just outside of it (see the black plastic covers to either side of the rubber weatherstripping, held on by a bunch of plastic pop rivets):


Rivets (0009908492 on sedan, likely same on coupe?)



At least on the sedan, these rivets go through holes in the sheet metal and they are the only thing preventing water from entering through those holes.




I just recently sealed the sh*t out of mine with silicone, and installed new rivets. Was getting water in the LHS trunk pocket after heavy rains.

BTW, I think Wavey meant this: http://www.mods4cars.com/sms/db/smar...all_clk/en.php (that's what I get to after following his link)

 

Well, things are drying out. Still no instrument panel.
Waiting for a fresh 203 to show up at the picknpull.
Went today, there was an '03 but the panel was destroyed, someone pulled it out forcibly to get the MFD LCD
but it day been there since Dec. At least it was closeby.

So what's the thing in the link you sent? Will that help me troubleshoot?
Sorry if I'm missing something, it's late and I'm tired.

 

So saw a post about recoding the panels etc.
Something about Palo Alto Speedometer, which is about 25 miles from my house.
Called and they said they'd test it for free...nice! At least I'd know it it's the instrument cluster. If it's bad, they can transfer the coding to the new used one from the old for ONLY $350.
Well at least they'll test the existing one, and i'll know one way or the other!!!!
So, yeah, tested fine! They even read the mileage!
Brought it home, plugged it back in and....VIOLA!!! It's working!!!
Going out for a drive, I don't think the mileage is updated.
But we'll see what happens!

Lets see if I can one month without something breaking....

 

I'm glad that you got your dash working again.

Do you think that having that place do a scan helped or fixed the dash?
Or, do you think that it was removing and reinstalling the dash that did the trick?

Maybe a connector got loose or had corrosion??

 

Well, canbus does sent a 'wake up' signal....
having it get fired up on the bench seemed to do what the
car couldn't!
Ah....but like I said, I wonder how long before something else breaks..?
Well...not long. Car ran great when panel was dead but immediately after coming back to life the recirc air flap started acting up...used part I got from pick n pull.
And it was running so good for a while...
oh well.
And turns out my tires need replacing too.

 

Well, got aound to checking under the hood. Turned out the guts of my 'new' Bremi MAF were hanging outside the car and air just blowing out of the housing.
Put my old MAF in, (works but not up to par, doesn't pass smog too lean)
recinc'd the recirc flap and running fine.
Trying to get the Bremi replaced, under warranty. RMEuropean wants me to pay for another one, and THEN send the bad one back and wait to get a refund.
Pushing to just return and get another one.