That is my rough understanding of how the LCD can fail that way...

The orange LED lights for my oil gauge in the instrument cluster appear to have "exploded." What I see is a blotch of orange that I can best describe as a maple leaf design on the lens of instrument cluster. It's as if the lights sprayed out under pressure and have applied themselves to my cover lens for the speedometer, clock, etc. It appears that, maybe, the inside of the lens has diode substance all over it.

Has anyone heard of this occurrence? Tell me it's common?

I have 87,000 miles on my Boxster and it's been an amazing, incredible vehicle.

Thanks for any help.

What you experienced is more common on the A/C control unit, but I've seen it a few times on the instrument cluster as well.
Unfortunately Porsche doesn't offer individual parts for the cluster so the only options are replacing the cluster altogether or replacing that particular screen from a used cluster.
If you replace the complete cluster, since the mileage is not resettable, your car will now show the mileage of this new cluster.
These screen failures happen with a sudden and extreme cooling or heating of the liquid crystal in the display, especially if it already had been stressed before.
Happy Boxstering
Pedro

Pedro Bonilla
1998 Boxster 986 - 311,000+ miles: [www.PedrosGarage.com]
PCA National Club Racing Scrutineer - PCA National HPDE Instructor - PCA Technical Committee (Boxster/Cayman)

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Pedro has it right, except that my info is the mileage from the old instrument cluster can be moved to the repaired or replacement cluster.

At least this is what I was told when I was faced with possibly replacing part of my Boxster's instrument cluster because of an always on airbag warning light. The tech (at the VDO repair facility in AZ) talked to me over the phone and described various ways of fixing a bad instrument cluster. Parts can be unsoldered and new parts soldered down. The contents of the FLASH memory chip can be read and then written to a new/replacement chip. There are a number of ways and he didn't seem concerned that he would not be able to preserve my car's odometer reading even if he had to replace the original one with one salvaged from another car and "rebuilt".

My advice is to find a highly regarded automobile speedo (instrument cluster) repair shop in your area and speak with someone there to find out what can be done.

I was recommended to use VDO Repair (www.vdorepair.com) and did use it. Well, the Porsche tech removed the instrument cluster and the parts manager packaged it and shipped it to the repair facility in AZ. However, I can't seem to locate the link for VDO Repair. Perhaps it has gone out of business?

Here in northern CA, there is Palo Alto Speedometer (in Palo Alto CA) which comes in for very good word of mouth praise for its instrument cluster repair. Here is its link:

[paspeedo.com]

While you may not be in the area, but more distant, it doesn't matter so much where the shop is located as the cluster is small enough, light enough shipping is not that expensive. You need to speak to the shop before you ship though to be sure it can help you, confirm that the odometer reading can be preserved, and what the repair will cost and how to ship and what insurance if any should be on the cluster.

Thanks guys. I wonder what would cause sudden heating or cooling? I hardly ever drive the car. That said, my driver's seat adjustment mechanism shorted and blew a fuse last year and I never fixed it. Would a random short like that be a cause?

Here's a link to instructions from re-programming a 986 or 996 cluster:

Cluster Programming

The mileage is encrypted, but you can copy it from one cluster to another.

The best explanation I have heard for the lcd problem is that something (dust or a water molecule) got between two layers of the lcd laminates during the manufacturing process. The layers eventually de-laminate causing the problem you are seeing. I'm not sure how the random short you describe would be a factor, but I cannot rule it out.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2016 02:34PM by KevinH2000. (view changes)

Quote
KevinH2000
The best explanation I have heard for the lcd problem is that something (dust or a water molecule) got between two layers of the lcd laminates during the manufacturing process. The layers eventually de-laminate causing the problem you are seeing. I'm not sure how the random short you describe would be a factor, but I cannot rule it out.

One of the crystals for some reason leaks or bleeds fluid out and one can see all kinds of weird patterns. Kind of a modern take on the Rorschach Test.

The possible fluid leak is not confined to the LCD. There was a fluid leak in my 996 Turbo auto dimming rear view mirror. No weird pattern though just a plain old semicircle shape shadow in the mirror.

It looks like replacement LCDs are now available: LCD's availablel

If you can find someone with the skill to install them it may save your cluster.