Very strange problem with the gf’s car today…
Failed its MOT earlier on a few things, one of which was a non-functioning dashboard tell-tale for the right indicator.
Brought the car home, assuming it would be an easy bulb change, and I could do it myself to save a big labour charge.
Got the instrument panel out pretty easily (thanks to the excellent source of information that is www.seatcupra.net), and tested the bulb. It was fine. Swapped the bulb over with a known good one and still the tell-tale wouldn’t illuminate.
Time for a bit of a head scratch. This could be expensive…
Used my trusty multimeter to check the voltage across the instrument panel connector. Thankfully, the current was getting through, so no problem within the wiring loom. This meant there was a problem somewhere in the instrument panel circuit board.
Now my guess is that this would be a very expensive part to replace. So I went through the PCB, checking for continuity. Sure enough there was a break in the circuit. Strangely, I couldn’t see any damage to the circuit tracks.
Partly inspired by the suggestion of the chap in the motor factors, I decided to solder a cable across the broken track, using some thin bell wire from Maplin that has been sitting around in my toolbox for years.
Fortunately the break was near the edge of the PCB and easy to reach. My soldering skills are far from exceptional but it all seems to work!
Jump wire on Ibiza instrument panel
All in all a very satisfying afternoon’s work, which would have cost a bomb if I had left it to the garage – who probably have no interest in fault-finding a PCB, so that would have been a new instrument panel. And I don’t know how good availability is for a ’96 diesel!