My friend's Audi 200 '90 has the following problem...
None of the lights on his dashboard are working. His AC, lighter and othere illuminated accessories are ALSO all DARK when headlights are working.
Speedo, Tach and other instruments are working as well as the red brake light, trip computer and Auto-Check System. The only part missing is the illumination. They are all in the dark.

We took the dashboard out, replaced 6 bad bulds,(all others were good) cleaned all the connections and etc. but it still doesn't work and everything is dark. Even the AC console is not illuminated which is far away from the dashboard.
Can you please help us and tell us where to look for the real problem? Any wires that may have gone bad? The fuse inder the hood was bad but we put a new one. Still DARK. Where can be the secret?
Any other fuses and connections that we need to check?

Thank you for your help in advance!

have you tried checking any of the relays, let me know if you dont know how. This might be silly to ask but is the dashboard light dimmer knob turned down all the way?

Dan - I would suspect the instrument light dimmer is defective....bypass it and see if that works.

Stephen Clark
89 Audi 100
Houston, TX USA

It was a bad dim switch and bad fuse that caused the darkness. Now everything works but the speedo is jumping up and down when accelerating and slowing down. Why is this happening? Any ideas?

Thanks for all the help!

speedo is not cable driven, It's probably a bad connection on the back of the Instrument Cluster. Try resoldering...

HTH!

Steve Ankney
88 5000
Holland, MI

an Audi TSB (Technical Service Buletin) on this problem which shows where the solder joint is.