Crazy tacho polo 1.4 16v 2002

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Mrtino
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Crazy tacho polo 1.4 16v 2002

Post by Mrtino »

good evening everyone, I am Italian and I apologize in advance for the bad English, but I have a problem with my 2002 1.4 16v petrol polo. I found an opportunity last week, so I decided to buy the car, yesterday I'm going to collect it, and the car has no problems, this morning I turn on the car and the odometer seems to have gone mad. the abs light is on, the oil light is on, two other lights that I don't know what they mean are on, the tachometer does not work and neither does the water temperature, the direction arrows do not work. I went back to the dealer, and they checked the car, they say I left the car under the sun and that the control unit went mad, it was enough to rest the car and everything would be solved, instead nothing was solved. next Monday I will have to bring the car back to have it checked. the Italian community was unable to help me, I wanted to know if anyone had similar problems on this forum and if they have solved them. thank you
RUM4MO
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Re: Crazy tacho polo 1.4 16v 2002

Post by RUM4MO »

Hi, welcome to this forum!

I don't have an answer for you but I needed to post so that you know that you are not getting ignored!

The dealer's excuse that it has been left out in the sun, does not seem like a good reason, if that car has been in Italy all of its life, it will have been left out in the sun quite a few times, and that car should survive these temperatures.

This could be a cracked solder joint in the dash pod/cluster, that just needs "reflowed" - ie heating up and melting the solder.

Edit:- now if it does have some cracked solder joints in the dash pod/cluster, that would get worse when the car was left out in direct proper Italian sunlight!
Mrtino
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Re: Crazy tacho polo 1.4 16v 2002

Post by Mrtino »

thanks for your answer, tomorrow I call the dealer. the problem of the sun is an excuse but I have already understood it, many lights in the odometer were on and the mechanic did not know what to do. They had already told me that if it did not resolve, they would send odometer and ECU to a company in Padua to fix them. I hope everything is resolved quickly, I will let you know.
RUM4MO
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Re: Crazy tacho polo 1.4 16v 2002

Post by RUM4MO »

Good, at least it sounds like your garage had worked out what might be the cause of this.
Mrtino
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Re: Crazy tacho polo 1.4 16v 2002

Post by Mrtino »

today I finally picked up the car !, in practice they changed the odometer by transferring the eprom from the old one, the problem is that it is not the same model of odometer, the old one had more functions while these are more basic, i don't like this thing but they didn't find the model I originally had. Now the odometer works well, but that's not all, after picking up the car I go to the tire dealer to change the tires, after half an hour I go back to the car, I turn it on and the abs light comes on. To do, so I went to an expert mechanic and he solved the problem of the abs light, it was just a blown fuse. Now I just hope to enjoy the car without any more problems, the only thing I want to do in the future is to change the odometer again to the center screen model, the one I have mounted is too basic. I hope I haven't bored anyone with this story. :mrgreen:
Mrtino
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Re: Crazy tacho polo 1.4 16v 2002

Post by Mrtino »

however speaking to this expert mechanic, he says that excessive heat can break the odometer, is a defect of polo especially in the first series, in practice the heat damages the electronic board and the soldering. another defect are the fuses that tend to burn out.
RUM4MO
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Re: Crazy tacho polo 1.4 16v 2002

Post by RUM4MO »

Hi, it is good to hear that you have got your problem fixed, but very annoying that they could not have just repaired the original dash pod!
Fuses, as far as I know, the fuses are another problem, all VW Group cars can suffer from this, well at least the VW Polo, Skoda Fabia and SEAT Ibiza - and probably the Audi A1 or A2. What happens to the "bolt on" strip fuses is that vibration and the fuse carrier flexing, ends up breaking the fuse link, so they are not normally "blown" because of a high current, but physically cracked and so items like ABS and power steering and others lose power. If this happens to another one of these fuses, if you you at the fuses with a magnifying glass you might see a tiny almost invisible crack across a "bolt in" fuse link.

Now to enjoy your new car!
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