At 60,000 miles, the MFD on my 2010 Jetta Sportwagon TDI started blanking out with no apparent pattern. Sometimes the MFD will blank out after 10-15 minutes of driving, but come back when I turn the ignition off; sometimes not. Occasionally, turning the car off and then back on restores the MFD; sometimes not. Sometimes, the problem occurs everyday; other times, I'll go days or weeks without the MFD blanking. The analog gauges and indicator lights in the cluster continue to work; just the video display screen goes dark. The VW dealer says they found a diagnostic code indicating a "communication" problem with the MFD and advises that the MFD circuit board is cracked and needs to be replaced - $564 for the board; with labor - $715 plus tax. The service guy didn't say if that was for the whole cluster or just for the MFD circuit board, but did advise there were "none available."
I saw elsewhere on RepairPal that this is a known problem with the VW Passat and seems to be temperature-related. My MFD doesn't seem to care what the weather is outside.
My question: is this a component failure, i.e. the pieces/parts of the MFD circuit board itself or a connectivity issue, i.e. how/where the MFD board is connected to sensor output, which might be solved by accessing the interior of the cluster and cleaning/repairing the connectors?
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