Cluster out and ready for shipping
Pixel failure is a common problem on the BMW E39 5 Series. My friend Steve’s cluster was going bad on his 2002 525 Sport, and he wasn’t happy about how much a brand new cluster would cost from BMW. So he decided to explore aftermarket repair options.
He decided to go with a company called Bimmeronly. They offer a great price and a lifetime warranty on the work. The instrument cluster needs to be removed by the owner and shipped to the company.
Steve doesn’t work on his car and asked me to help with the removal. We followed a thorough online tutorial from VDORepair, another reliable option for cluster repair.
Everything went pretty smoothly. One edit to the VDO instructions — there are five Torx #10 screws to remove, not three.
Trim Removed
Bezel coming off
Looks very empty
Steve’s evolution to being a more educated and hands on BMW owner is off to a promising start. He already has his next project. His car is throwing an error code for lean air/fuel mixture. New oxygen sensors and/or a new Mass Air Filter are probably required.
Nice, post my 97 525 Instrument cluster is like a cultulator gone bad,thank you so much Chris.
Chris, I used VDO Repair in Southern California to repair the plastic “glass” on my M5. I had to source a used instrument panel and shipped the new and existing panels off to them but they did great work and were very reasonable. Now I need to do pixel repair on my M3 computer so I will be contacting them again. Great write-up!