Hi folks

I'm hoping a couple of gurus can help me. My wife's car is a 2002 E430/SPT and when we bought it in 2007, it came with the typical "VDO cracked glue, no clock and temp pixels" problem. This is a late model W210 with the big dot matrix computer display in the middle, which is of course fine.

I recently became bold enough to attempt the standard repair of wedging a sliver of spongy rubber (aka mouse mat) between the ribbon cable and its tensioner. This was perfectly successful for the temperature gauge, got the shifter matrix to almost readable, and of course did not help the clock which is what she really wants

In the course of this, I managed to (a) nudge a few of the needles when I had the cluster exposed, and (b) exacerbate a loose contact issue with the left hand plug, which results in the 2nd backlight bulb (of 4 counting left to right) not begin powered.

I repositioned the speedo and tach the low tech way and they are now fine and accurate , but the fuel gauge keeps trying to recalibrate itself, and gets it wildly wrong (e.g. tank 150% full) more often than not. I have trained her to use the fuel display on the computer, but an analog gauge is much better for unprompted warnings and I'd like to get it to work.

Questions:

1. Is it worth having another attempt at the clock, or is it likely that the plasma unit itself is fried? I will note that I did the clock first and temp second.

2. Are the continual fuel gauge recalibration attempts due to the loose connection, or is it on the fritz because it got moved?

3. Any ideas on fixing the loose connection?

4. Having had the cluster apart literally a dozen times, I am tempted to punt, but I cannot find any of those mail-away shops that do MB clusters. I found a note on this forum saying "search the other forum" - presumably, someone trying promote rivalry rather than be helpful - and when I did so I drew a blank. Finding such a shop for MB seems to be like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I found a couple through Google, but neither returned my calls or emails. Could anyone who knows of a shop that is actually still in business please post specific info here, like a link to an old thread, a phone number or a site URL, and please no vague references to wild goose chases

5. Alternatively, is there such a thing as a recon. cluster, and if so where would I get one, and what would it take to get it programmed to the car? Does the programming require STAR?

 

As you have discovered, DIY on clusters is hit and miss.

Cluster is version coded to the car so best to try to fix the one you have. Here is a co that does it and there are others scattered around the US.

http://www.bba-reman.com/content.asp...edes_Dashboard