Speedo not illuminating - any advice?

irmscher2007

Active Member
Aug 15, 2007
59
0
Cheshire
Hello all.

My wife's just purchased a 2010 Seat Ibiza. Its in great condition but when driving to work in the dark she noticed that the Speedo is not illuminating.

Is this likely to be a blown bulb and if so are they replaceable if I can get the cluster out.

Many thanks

IMG_20200114_175513837.jpg
 

irmscher2007

Active Member
Aug 15, 2007
59
0
Cheshire
Ok so I have a look around Google and it seems to be that the majority of VAG vehicles are now running with soldered in LED bulbs rather than replaceable ones so my idea of just changing the bulbs is out of the window.

What seems odd is that the whole of the speedo bulbs except the needle is out as you wouldn't expect them all to go at once.

Does anyone have any experience of this or can offer any suggestions?

Thanks.
 

RUM4MO

Active Member
Jun 4, 2008
7,784
983
South Scotland
Not got a good answer so I didn't bother trying to guess, what happens when you vary the instrument illumination from min to max, can you detect any change at all in the speedo lighting or lack of it?

Your comments about VW Group using surface mounted LEDs will be true though. Without knowing exactly how the back lighting is achieved I can only consider that more than one LED is involved, but guessing is not being smart.
 

irmscher2007

Active Member
Aug 15, 2007
59
0
Cheshire
Not got a good answer so I didn't bother trying to guess, what happens when you vary the instrument illumination from min to max, can you detect any change at all in the speedo lighting or lack of it?

Your comments about VW Group using surface mounted LEDs will be true though. Without knowing exactly how the back lighting is achieved I can only consider that more than one LED is involved, but guessing is not being smart.

When I use the illumination brightness everything else changes but the Speedo section doesn't change.

I've been in touch with the garage and they have said I can bring it in next week. They have made an appointment with an auto electrician so hopefully they will be able to fix it.
 
Oct 25, 2020
3
0
When I use the illumination brightness everything else changes but the Speedo section doesn't change.

I've been in touch with the garage and they have said I can bring it in next week. They have made an appointment with an auto electrician so hopefully they will be able to fix it.

Did you get it fixed and did you find out what it was? I've got an identical issue on my 2011 Leon at the moment
 

irmscher2007

Active Member
Aug 15, 2007
59
0
Cheshire
Yes mate. We took it back to the garage under warranty. It needed quite a bit of work as the LED bulbs can't be replaced individually.

It needed some work similar to this site


It's working fine now.

Dave
 
Oct 25, 2020
3
0
Yes mate. We took it back to the garage under warranty. It needed quite a bit of work as the LED bulbs can't be replaced individually.

It needed some work similar to this site


It's working fine now.

Dave

Awesome thanks for your response! Good to hear it's working for you now, although annoying that it failed in the first place, I do wonder if mine is a similar issue to yours but for some reason it will still illuminate dimly when the engine runs but nowhere near as bright as the other gauges, and when the engine is off with the ignition on the Speedo backlight is completely dead even with the other gauges illuminated!

Thanks for pointing me towards cartronix too, I'd never heard of them until I started looking at my issue, thought I recognized the phone number and it turns out they're just over the road from where I work in Waterlooville - small world!