Is there anything I can do myself to repair the display in the instrument cluster on my S-Max Mk1 2006 Titanium? It used to work well in the summer and then have issues with only half the display working or not coming on at all when the weather got wetter and colder. Come summer it would work again but the last 18 months it has hardly worked at all (except this morning, oddly). There is obviously a bad connection or some such problem, also because I used to be able to get it to work by tapping very gently in the upper right hand corner. But not anymore. 

Examples below. 

Thank you in advance

The LCD will have to be replaced, that's the only fix. They cost about £90 direct from China.

These tall LCDs have two embedded microchips, one on each side, each handling on half of the display. I do cluster repair work and I've found myself with a failing display that if I pushed on one corner of the chip it would work better, suggesting that the problem is that the electrical connections are breaking away from the embedded chip. Unfortunately it's just not practical to repair this though. I once tried blasting one with some heat (enough to hopefully remelt any solder) and it just ruined it. Maybe if I'd tried putting some heat protective pads on it to protect the polarisation filter glued to the glass, it might have been a different story, but I haven't bother trying again since, it's just not worth it given that I rarely need to replace an LCD and it's better to just replace with a new one where possible.

Note that your cluster model also suffers from the common cracked solder joint issue on the wiring connector, but this is not responsible for the LCD issues here, that's the LCD itself. Your model also commonly suffers from random needle movement issues, which as far as I've been able to tell is due to failing microchips.

On 6/13/2025 at 8:46 PM, rd457 said:

The LCD will have to be replaced, that's the only fix. They cost about £90 direct from China.

These tall LCDs have two embedded microchips, one on each side, each handling on half of the display. I do cluster repair work and I've found myself with a failing display that if I pushed on one corner of the chip it would work better, suggesting that the problem is that the electrical connections are breaking away from the embedded chip. Unfortunately it's just not practical to repair this though. I once tried blasting one with some heat (enough to hopefully remelt any solder) and it just ruined it. Maybe if I'd tried putting some heat protective pads on it to protect the polarisation filter glued to the glass, it might have been a different story, but I haven't bother trying again since, it's just not worth it given that I rarely need to replace an LCD and it's better to just replace with a new one where possible.

Note that your cluster model also suffers from the common cracked solder joint issue on the wiring connector, but this is not responsible for the LCD issues here, that's the LCD itself. Your model also commonly suffers from random needle movement issues, which as far as I've been able to tell is due to failing microchips.

Thank you for the reply! I just saw it this morning (expected to be notified since I follow my own post but I wasn't). Anyway, yesterday I took the cluster out, and of course it worked fine until I loosely put it back in place. Then it failed again. I managed to make it flicker and have columns of short, hoirzontal lines near the top, when I pressed the centre transistor and swept the area below it with my finger. A good friend is knowledgeable in the ways of electronics and he resoldered some points, especially on the large central chip and on the wiring connectors for the display. They looked a bit under-soldered under microscope. After this I could not provoke the error anymore.

And hey-presto: The thing has worked since. Both after I reassembled everything and after driving an hour. If there indeed is an error in the display as well then maybe the resoldering will make it appear less often. I hope the display stays on at least until I have it MOT'ed later this month. I need the tachometer reading for the inspection.

Thanks again for your input.