9 replies to this topic

[ripper996]

I recently bought a 2000 V70R instrument cluster for my 2000 V70 XC from a fellow forum member. I called four Bay Area dealerships and three San Francisco Independents to shop around on who was the most competent to fit the cluster. The answer from all of them ranged from it can't be done (four of them) to it will cost $1200 (dealer) to we'll have a go and only charge you if it works (dealer/independent). The ones that were somewhat positive said that it was my XC that stored the data and that replacing the XC cluster with the R cluster shouldn't be a problem as it is basically a 'plug & play' thing. However, it didn't give me a whole lot of confidence.

Does anyone know if replacing the XC cluster with the R cluster is an easy fit or just not doable and if so, can they recommend a Bay Area shop that can do the job properly? Thanks.

[jschaefer7406]

Hello,

Very easy swap if you're comfortable removing the dash pad. Once the cluster is out, it can be disassembled and the R faces transferred to your current cluster. That way you retain your original cluster, but are able to use the blue R faces. Mileage will stay the same and all. I've done it twice on my S70, easy Saturday job if you're comfortable doing it yourself.

Good luck, let me know if you need any more help

Joe

[ripper996]

OK. I'm going to give it a go this weekend. I'll try to post some pictures of the attempt.

[ripper996]

OK, well I did the easy part and that was to disassemble the donor cluster and remove the clocks from that one. Time permitting, I will try to get to doing the hard part - removing the dashboard.

[(n)A-GAME]

Sigh. It's not hard. It takes all of 15 minutes.

[Korruption]

(n)A-GAME, on 02 August 2010 - 06:41 PM, said:

Sigh. It's not hard. It takes all of 15 minutes.

Perhaps a tad longer if you haven't done it before, but please do not pay a dealership 1200 dollars to install this cluster.

Good luck. Once you do it, and see how generally simple this swap is... call the dealer and ask them what the other 1100 was for.

[ripper996]

Korruption, on 02 August 2010 - 06:55 PM, said:

Perhaps a tad longer if you haven't done it before, but please do not pay a dealership 1200 dollars to install this cluster.

Good luck. Once you do it, and see how generally simple this swap is... call the dealer and ask them what the other 1100 was for.

F.A.B.

[ripper996]

OK, it's all done. It took me approx. an hour and a half, including swapping out the needle clusters between the two clusters. Anyway, if anyone is interested, here's how I did it:


Tools used - T-25 torx screwdriver, flat head screwdriver, 10mm wrench, Plexus plastic cleaner.


1. I put the driver's seat all the way to the rear as far as it would go:



2. Next, move the steering wheel down to its lowest position:



3. Disconnect negative battery cable:



4. Using a flat head screwdriver covered with a t-shirt (so as not to damage anything), remove the two side and front air vent trim pieces on the left and right side, the top speaker grills and the central vent trim:







5. Remove the all the torx screws from the exposed vents, inside the glove box and the two torx screws from the underside of the instrument panel. There are three 10mm bolts securing the airbag to the underside of the dash inside the exposed glove box compartment. When I undid mine, there was no 'recall stud as a third screw'. Other posters have recommended replacing the stud with a 10mm bolt:



6. For me, the next part was the hardest. It took me at least 15-20 minutes trying to unfasten the airbag connector. For whatever reason, it would not come undone. Finally, it pulled apart safely and I was able to remove the dash without any problems:





7. Unfasten the two clips at the front of the cluster, unfasten the three green plugs and the blue plug at the rear of the alarm module, then pull up, back and away to passenger side of the dash:





8. Using a flat head screwdriver, undo the plastic clips holding the clear screen to the cluster. There are two torx #10 screws securing the alarm module to the cluster; remove them and then pull the two parts away:



9. There are two small phillips screws securing each of the three gray XC instrument dials in position. Remove the three sets of two screws, six in total, then gently pull each dial away from the cluster base:



10. Repeat the same for the donor cluster dials, then transfer the R cluster dials to the XC gray cluster:



11. Now secure the front clear plastic cover back onto the main cluster body. Before I secured it back into the car dash, I used some Plexus plastic polish and cleaner. It made a huge difference to the clear plastic, removing old scratches and cleaning the plastic:



12. Place the dash panel back into its original position, secure the airbag connector, put the three 10mm bolts back securing the airbag, screw all the torx screws back to where they came out from and push all the trim pieces back into the dash:



13. Having secured the negative battery lead to the battery, there should be no signs of any codes. The only things I had to correct, was to insert the code for the radio, and reset the time. The original mileage was still displayed. The only other thing was that the trip odometer had reset to 0. However, you should end up with the finished product looking something like this:



I called several dealers who quoted me 3-5 hours labor. At approx. $150-180/hr, I'm feeling pretty good right now, especially when a couple of them said that the ECU to the car needed to be reflashed, or that they wouldn't do work involving used parts, or that it just couldn't be done at all.

Thanks to everyone for their help & support!

Edited by ripper996, 21 August 2010 - 08:41 PM.

[(n)A-GAME]

Nice writeup with pics. I'm sure this will help someone later on down the road.

[mune237]

Thanks Ripper, good job.

Now Adam will have a tutorial to send with his R clusters, that he keeps finding.