timmus
A2OC Donor
Hi Tom,
It is more likely to have been done to make the car easier / more valuable to sell.
...
Steve B
This was a cluster I bought online, so I have no idea of the history of the car from which it came... though I can assume it was broken for parts given that I bought its cluster. As far as I'm aware, if a particular model of car has an engine management light, it must be working in order for the car to pass an MOT. That doesn't mean the car fails its MOT if the light is on... but the light itself must work. I'm not sure of the precise letter of the law and I can't imagine it's something that MOT testers are particularly picky about, but the rule exists to stop people from simply de-soldering the warning lights.
If your FSI was seemingly running OK but you got fed up of your engine management light constantly being on, the simple solution would be to remove the light. But this method creates a problem; turn the key in the ignition of any A2, and you'll see the engine management light do a self-test before you start the engine. This is why the engine management light of this particular cluster was paralleled from the EPC light, as that'd cause the LED to illuminate during the self-test and then extinguish.
If you wanted to pull the wool over someone's eyes when selling the car, you'd probably just de-solder the LED. I've seen this on loads of clusters (always FSIs!), but adding the parallel to the EPC light is a much more sophisticated means of deception, which is why I suspect it was done with MOT testers in mind.
Cheers,
Tom
Apologies for the thread swerve, by the way.
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