A dead MFA

Just a quick one, the MFA on my car has been a blank screan since I bought her all those years ago and I was thinking since I'm rebuilding her I may as well fix it for good!

Is it just a case of replacing the binicle or is there something else I can check on the car?

Any help would be just grand, thanks

Your best bet is to replace the whole instrument panel with a good one from a scrapper . Spares are becoming rare now [although dealers do carry some] and as far as i am aware there are no specialists rebuilding them

Cheers………….

just try checking the fuseboard, all the big square fuses, push them in, i noticed mine didnt work and was actually trying to find something completely different at the time and just pushed them in through boredom then when i next turned ignition on the computer worked!

Clean up all the earths and electrical connections as well.

The connections in the back of the dash are probably OK, but connections in the engine bay to all the various sensors/earths will most likely have corroded. Cleaning these may bring the MFA you have back to life. If not it's still worth doing to make sure any replacement MFA works OK.


Ali Cabrio

anything else not working ? eg dash lights, cig lighter, interior light ? worth checking all fuses and earth wire from back of rocker cover.and have a look to see if wires are still connected onto back of  dash clocks good luck.

Well, I know not how, but an auto electrician got my MFA working by accident. He was fixing a problem with my stereo, which resulted in the interior light not working. When I took it back, he complained about the fuse boxes of Mk1s being really unreliable and hard to replace, and had to piggyback a connection to get the interior light working again. When he fixed the light, the MFA just fired up again!

Sadly, I parked her up last winter as I had no garage for her in the alps, and while she was covered, it looks like a field mouse got in and filled the dash with lots of seeds. The mouse, which also made a lovely nest in my boot out of my favourite picnic rug from Mexico and some paper towel, has possibly chewed through the same cable, and now my MFA does not work anymore. Nor does the drivers' side heated seat. Pah!

Anyway, I recommend you take yours to a good autoelectrician first and see if they can help.

ps - my car looks just like yours.

A company called Digi-dash boards used to advertise in Rabbit that they fixed MFA's the price used to be ?125 they were based in leominster.

They also once had a feature in Rabbit about their service.

They say disconnecting and reconnecting the battery can damage the MFA,but sometimes when my Golf has not be used and the battery has gone flat or I have taken it off I have had a blank screen and reconnecting the battery a few times has brought all the functions back.

OH yeah, I found this a while back. If the mouse didn't eat through my cable, maybe it was when my battery went flat (I still have numbers displayed on mine though, so not sure if this will help my problem…maybe yours though). I still haven't tried it (I fix lots of stuff with my car, but I'm afraid it's safer that I be a true girly girl for this one and ask one of my mates to help):

This same 'hiccup' also often occurs if the battery is flattened or disconnected. Instead of displaying the usual range of trip information, the tiny screen either shows just some horizontal lines at the bottom or it goes completely blank! In the worst case this will mean a replacement unit but there is also a quick fix worth trying (you will need a happy helper for this job):
 
ALWAYS TAKE CARE WHEN DEALING WITH BATTERIES/ELECTRICS
?   Disconnect the battery.
?   Hold down the MFA button.
?   Reconnect the battery.
?   While still holding down the MFA button, turn on the ignition, release the button and turn off the ignition.
?   Hold down the MFA button again, turn on the ignition and release the button.
You should now have a correctly working display. It has been known for the display to jump into life halfway through the process. If this happens, you can congratulate yourself and stop right there, for it has been known for the computer to 'hiccup' again if the process is continued after it comes back to life!

Cheers guys, found my problem and solution... getting a set of mk2 16v clocks to go with my G60 engine will do the job nicely!