Any S3 owners replaced a bulb in the instrument cluster?

[stevec]

I have ordered a new S3 which is built during week 12. Yippee.

One of the things I noticed about a night time test drive of the new S3 however is that the instrument cluster lights up white rather then red (not like my current S3). Boo.

The new dials on the cluster are white like my current S3. Yippee.

I am interested to know if anyone here has changed a bulb in an S3 instrument cluster to give me an idea how easy it is to make the new instrument cluster red? I am hoping the bulbs have a red tinge to them and it should be a simple case of swapping them over.

if any one can help that would be great. It was quite a surprise that the interior of the S3 was not all red and its something I'm keen to rectify when the new S3 arrives...

 

[VeeDub Geezer]

might be better asking the 8P lot mate

 

[rodenal]

Changing the leds wont be a particularly hard thing to do, just takes a good bit of time and and some soldering - i dont know how easy it'll be to actually get into the instrument cluster tho

 

[stevec]

might be better asking the 8P lot mate

Well I have an 8L S3 and have just ordered and 8P S3...

The reason I am asking on the 8L forum is to know if anyone has changed a bulb in the 8L S3 instrument cluser to know if illumination is via bulbs or as has been noted earlier LED's.

I have had a number of parts of the dash off on my 8L, but never removed the instrument cluster so would like to know how complicted this is and once complete if anyone knows what bulbs/LED's are fitted.

As noted earlier I am proposing changing the bulbs/LED's on my new 8P S3 so the instrument cluster glows red just like my current 8L S3 does.

 

[FactionOne]

IIRC there's a mixture of bulbs and LEDs in the instrument cluster - I had a quick look at ELSA about 12 months ago to see what's what when I had to get my car through an inspection before my side airbags were wired-up (and unfortunately airbag light isn't an easy one, quickest way was to swap the seats back for the exam and then get them connected-up properly at the next opportunity. I'm not sure whether or not you could improvise a method to get around it, but ELSA basically advises that a couple of the light sources can be accessed and replaced if the bulb blows, but for the majority if they need renewal it prescribes a new instrument cluster so that might be an indication of what level of access you'll get.

I'm not sure off the top of my head which ones were the bulbs you can change and which ones weren't, but if nobody else can offer you anything concrete in the meantime I'll have another look on the laptop tomorrow...

Regards,

Rob.

 

[jimmp]

Hello FactionOne...

my 01 plate 1.8T Quattro doesn't have any illumination on the needles (the dials are fine) in the instrument cluster- what do you think my options are...?