Discuss all MFA Cluster Tricks (For the FAQ)...

[nater]

Original quote from FAQ.

Please discuss and keep it on topic. Please report any off topic discussion as this is currently linked-to in the FAQ.
Thanks guys!

Quote, originally posted by MJA311 »

The Hidden Tach This is for people who don't have a tach or just a cool little trick. 1. Push in the button that is right beside the mileage on the cluster and hold it in. 2. Turn the key to the on position, (Don't start the car, just do it so that the electronics come on, and keep holding the button down). 3. Turn the key back to the off position (still holding down the button). 4. Start the car, let go of the button. 5. You should now see a "1" in the little display, cycle through by pushing the button until you hit 7, you now should have a digital tach. Worked on my car but when i did this my gas gauge went screwy. After I turned the car off and back on the gas gauge went back to normal?

[nater]

Quote, originally posted by jonbaker »

to expand... MKIII Display diagnostics how to... 1. Turn your key to the on position (do not start the car). I waited until all the lights and beeping calmed down and the gas gauge registed 2. Push down the trip computer button 3. Turn the key off while still holding the trip button down Again I waited until all the lights stopped and the gas gauge went back to "E" 4. With the button still supressed, start the car. 5. Release the button and cycle through the different functions. Mine reset to regualr speedo/trip functions the next time I started the car. I don't know what all the functions do I put the what my car read out below. Hopefully somebody who knows will post and tell us what everything is reading out. Function = Read out 1 = 6214 (no idea what this is) 2 = 4 (no idea what this is) 3 = 31470 (for some reason I have seen this number before, maybe on my ECU) 4 = 6 5 = Lights all the LCDs in the gauge to see that they work 6 = 0 (this counts either distance or revolution of front axles. not sure) 7 = Digital tackometer (also plays with your feul gauge) 8 = Trip counter the display will reset after you turn off your car...

[4690]

[yeayeayea]

i did the same thing but instead of holding the trip button i held the mfa button and it did wierd things with my mfa. can anyone explain this?

[envy.]

SEARC.... oh wait... nvm.

i'm glad this came up. anybody yet figure out why the digital tach makes the fuel gauge all screwy? i've noticed that it sort of acts like a vacuum gauge in it's behavior at times. it's probably just a coincidence.

[wickedklown]

it takes the buffer away so it reads real time

[XVR6wagonX]

I wanna try.

[wolfyy98]

tried this today with the digital tachometer feature. Its a neat thing to have, made my gas gauge act like the rpm gauge though

[PettR]

The fuel gauge acts weird because it measures the fuel in "real-time" while in that "service-mode".
When not in that mode, it has a delay so it won't bounce around.

[Davis.]

I believe this is only on obd2 mk3's. I tried it in my '95 2.0 with no luck That's all I know on the matter

[dubbinway]

worked on my 95 2.0 Maybe gauge cluster is bad?

[Davis.]

Quote, originally posted by dubbinway »

worked on my 95 2.0 Maybe gauge cluster is bad?

nope, my gauge cluster worked just fine

Doesn't matter now, unless it would work on my '88 16v

[91GolfGL]

I going to see if this works on my 94, I kind of hope it does i want to see the digital tach and my gas gauge go crazy lol.

[yeayeayea]

wen you hold the maf button instead of the trip button, it does only 3 functions, the instant mpg, oil temp, and something i dont know (mine said -40)

and when you do the trip i thought that was the car doing instant mpg, reminds me of the ECONOMY gauges found in older mercedes benz's

[PettR]

Quote, originally posted by yeayeayea »

ECONOMY gauges found in older mercedes benz's

[mAyZa b 3 a t s]

Quote, originally posted by jonbaker »

to expand... MKIII Display diagnostics how to... 1. Turn your key to the on position (do not start the car). I waited until all the lights and beeping calmed down and the gas gauge registed 2. Push down the trip computer button 3. Turn the key off while still holding the trip button down Again I waited until all the lights stopped and the gas gauge went back to "E" 4. With the button still supressed, start the car. 5. Release the button and cycle through the different functions. Mine reset to regualr speedo/trip functions the next time I started the car. I don't know what all the functions do I put the what my car read out below. Hopefully somebody who knows will post and tell us what everything is reading out. Function = Read out 1 = 6214 (no idea what this is) 2 = 4 (no idea what this is) 3 = 31470 (for some reason I have seen this number before, maybe on my ECU) 4 = 6 5 = Lights all the LCDs in the gauge to see that they work 6 = 0 (this counts either distance or revolution of front axles. not sure) 7 = Digital tackometer (also plays with your feul gauge) 8 = Trip counter the display will reset after you turn off your car...

I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere that either #2 or #4 is the number of cylinders your car has, and the other ones have something to do with production. I can't find that article again though...

[91GolfGL]

I did it today worked great. I used the digi tach it was cool, It didnt make my gas gauge go all crazy either.

[dubtech001]

Quote, originally posted by 91GolfGL »

I did it today worked great. I used the digi tach it was cool, It didnt make my gas gauge go all crazy either.

Did you have a full tank or nearly full? That could be why it didn't go nutz on ya.

[PettR]

Quote, originally posted by dubtech001 »

Did you have a full tank or nearly full? That could be why it didn't go nutz on ya.

Mine does it anyway

And thanks yeayeayea, I was driving my car the other day, and wondered why there wasn't a way to show the instant mpg

[91GolfGL]

Quote, originally posted by PettR »

Mine does it anyway And thanks yeayeayea, I was driving my car the other day, and wondered why there wasn't a way to show the instant mpg

Nope just under a quarter tank. I think my gas gauge is a little screwy anyways so maybe thats it lol.

[yeayeayea]

Quote, originally posted by PettR »

Mine does it anyway And thanks yeayeayea, I was driving my car the other day, and wondered why there wasn't a way to show the instant mpg

no problem, i found it on accident really. i couldnt remember if the mfa trick was done holding the mfa button or the trip button, but was surprised to see both worked! any clue what the mfa button trick means in the outside temp position? last night it said -40 on mine, and now it says 110

[PettR]

Quote, originally posted by yeayeayea »

any clue what the mfa button trick means in the outside temp position? last night it said -40 on mine, and now it says 110

No, not sure, I think mine said -40 or something too

[yeayeayea]

my mfa button rarely works so its hard for me to figure out what it means. my intermitten wiper also rarely works and my cruise rarely works. previous owner had one of those DUI breathalizer things installed so im guessing something isnt wired correctly.

[ikerpup]

Quote, originally posted by jonbaker »

1 = 6214 (no idea what this is) 2 = 4 (no idea what this is) 3 = 31470 (for some reason I have seen this number before, maybe on my ECU) 4 = 6 5 = Lights all the LCDs in the gauge to see that they work 6 = 0 (this counts either distance or revolution of front axles. not sure) 7 = Digital tackometer (also plays with your feul gauge) 8 = Trip counter

From elsawin:

1= Distance Impulse number - the number of speedo sender pulses required to +1 the odometer. for miles the number is in the 6000 range, for kilometers the number is in the 3000 range.
2 = Clock display mode - 1: Europe (24 hour time) 2: Canada? 3. UK (12 hour) 4. USA (12 hour) 5. South Africa?
3 = Speedometer and rev. counter code
4 = number of cylinders, or ratio for alternator/engine revolutions. (for tach calibration)
5 = Segment test (lights all LCD segments)
6 = Speedomenter sender impulses - each wheel revolution adds 7 to this count.
7 = RPM counter - momentary engine speed
8 = program version

I actually dumped the ROM image from my cluster one afternoon while I was bored and did a little experimentation. Turns out you can recode the cluster from miles to Km and back by changing 3 bytes. You can change the clock display mode by changing 1 byte. And you can change the number of cylinders by changing another byte.

Also editable is the smoothing for the fuel and temp guages, as well as the values to trigger the low fuel and temp lights, although I haven't quite figured them out yet.

One day I'll do a writup/DIY for all of that, however there are different cluster versions which undoubtedly have different ways of organizing that data in ROM, so what works for me may not work for others. So, I need to find me a few different junkyard clusters to tinker with before a writeup to warranted.

Modified by ikerpup at 2:07 AM 5-1-2010

[PettR]

Very good post

[sk8too]

wish i had the MFA, stupid base line GL

[mkIIIVDUB]

a trick i use when the lights shut off in my cluster is to hit the dashboard above the cluster really hard a few times. it seems ti do the job

[PettR]

If you have the car running, or the igniton on while you're filling the gas tank, and your fuel gauge needle still sits where it did before you filled it with gas, you can just put it in diagnostics mode, and it will show up correctly immediately.

[oh noes! cars!]

Quote, originally posted by sk8too »

wish i had the MFA, stupid base line GL

No 2.0 cars had it, but you can still do the cluster tricks

[PettR]

Quote, originally posted by oh noes! cars! »

No 2.0 cars had it.

A few in Europe does

[Yugoslavia!]

Quote, originally posted by PettR »

A few in Europe does

Haha love when someone in NA state a fact and then some Euro Trash pop by and ruins it all.

Seriously though, Petter Northug is absolutely right. AFAIK all GTIs (8V & 16V) have MFA.

[PettR]

Quote, originally posted by Yugoslavia! »

Haha love when someone in NA state a fact and then some Euro Trash pop by and ruins it all.

I always do that

[oh noes! cars!]

Quote, originally posted by Yugoslavia! »

Haha love when someone in NA state a fact and then some Euro Trash pop by and ruins it all. Seriously though, Petter Northug is absolutely right. AFAIK all GTIs (8V & 16V) have MFA.

Since the discussion was primarily based with NA users, I feel it was a correct statement since no NA 2.0 cars had mfa.

It's irrelevant that EU cars had it, as it wouldn't work in an NA car without serious modification.

[ikerpup]

Quote, originally posted by oh noes! cars! »

No 2.0 cars had it, but you can still do the cluster tricks

They did in the UK, which makes for a perfect swap to a US vehicle since its already in miles. Although you still have to do wiring. I recently came up on a MFA cluster from a VR6 jetta which I'm planning to put in my cabrio once I get the wiring all figured out. (again, you can change the tach from 6 to 4 cyl by editing the rom)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayI...%3AIT

Kinda wish I had seen that before getting mine, I'm not a big fan of the silver faces on mine. But at least the face will be correct for an american car (miles, and temp in F)

Modified by ikerpup at 12:31 PM 5-1-2010

[Yugoslavia!]

Quote, originally posted by oh noes! cars! »

Since the discussion was primarily based with NA users, I feel it was a correct statement since no NA 2.0 cars had mfa. It's irrelevant that EU cars had it, as it wouldn't work in an NA car without serious modification.

Sure but saying no 2.0 had it isn't absolutely correct.
Never mind, I'll go and carry on hunting polar bears and eating lutfisk.