 Dealing with an intermittent cluster (fixed!!)
Hello fellow swappers...
I have been running with a '95 instrument cluster since installing my engine, and it has been intermittent (eBay special...).
I since acquired a brand new cluster from the dealer for the 1998 M3 (the year of my car), but the dealer was unable to code it. All that shows up when installed in the mileage display is: CODE and none of the gages work.
Since then, I purchased another cluster of eBay (1997 model this time) that was supposedly tested and working well. But I stumbled across a piece of information that solves the problem with bad clusters for us, and the inability to code them for good...
On the back of the cluster, on the left side as viewed from the rear, there is a small rectangular plastic piece that is protruding from the back of the cluster. It is about 1.5 X 3 cm, and on the left of this protrusion is a small arrow pointing to a smaller rectangular opening; just right for a small screwdriver to fit into.
Inserting the appropriate screwdriver and prying up gently, the molded 'cover' can be popped off the coding chip (it cannot be replaced, but the chip is secured in the cluster without the cover). Remove this chip from the intermittent cluster, remove the un-coded chip from the new cluster, and pop the coded chip into the new cluster. Now it works!
A few notes of caution here: Make sure you use similar year clusters when swapping chips. I did not even attempt to install the '95 chip into my new '98 cluster. The '95 does not have traction control, and I'm not sure if this matters (it may not, but I was not going to risk my $300+ cluster to find out). A second thing to be warned about is the TMU (true mileage unknown) dot. This small, red dot will appear just below the odometer to warn those 'in the know' the mileage may not be correct. My cluster now shows significantly less mileage than my '95 cluster did, which was significantly higher than my car's actual mileage, which was significantly higher than the engine's mileage. Confused yet?
I do not know if the swapped chip will allow it to be properly coded at the dealer or not. Since it's working correctly now, I'm not messing with it.
I will be adding this info to my swap document... |