Summertime is a great time to enjoy the outdoors with your Yamaha motorbike. Dressing up your bike suit, feeling the speed, sensing the acceleration… all these feelings are fantastic. Unfortunately, this time of the year is also the one when more motorbike keys are broken, lost or not recognised by our customers’ motorcycles.

Here at Autotronics we are experts in producing new Yamaha keys, so that our customers can get back on the road as soon as possible. We only need the motorbike’s immobiliser unit, which usually is located in the dashboard, and the barrel; our engineers decode the information from the immobiliser box and the new blade from the barrel, providing a brand new key. We can produce multiple keys, if necessary.

If you are interested in buying our exclusive Yamaha key cutting and decoding service, click here:
https://www.autotronics.co.uk/services-en/immobiliser-repair/yamaha/

In some other cases, the key is not recognised by the motorcycle or suddenly stops working. If so, we can check the key data on the immo and fix the issue.

We work with all the motorbike manufacturers: Suzuki, Kawasaki, Honda, BMW, Gilera, Triumph… so, if your key is broken, lost or rejected, don’t worry, we are here to help.

With our latest additions to our website, we can proudly say now that Autotronics has the most comprehensive and extensive range of instrument cluster repairs for Honda car manufacturer.

So, if you or any of your acquaintances owns a Civic, a Jazz, an Accord, a CRV or any other of the Japanese manufacturer’s models and its instrument cluster is faulty, you can be sure that at Autotronics you will receive the most experienced technical advise.

Some of the most common issues we have seen on these dashboards are: dead temperature or speed gauges, scrambled displays, flickering lights, faded LCDs… even complete failure. Thankfully, our skilled engineers have the knowledge and expertise required to repair these and many other faults.

To buy our exclusive Honda cluster repair service, just select your model and year on our website and proceed with the checkout process. We will usually have your cluster fixed in 2 to 3 working days and will, of course, offer you a warranty with the repair.

Check our unbeatable prices now.

Lately we have seen a rise in the number of Mercedes-Benz instrument clusters that we receive at our premises for repair, specially W215 and W220.

If you have a Mercedes CL-Class or a Mercedes S-Class and your cluster is also faulty, please feel free to contact us. Our highly skilled and experienced engineers can provide you with the best possible technical advise.

Some of the most common failures that we’ve seen on these W215 and W220 speedometers are faulty gauges, odometer issues, digital display problems and backlight failures.

We are not only experts in Mercedes CL and S Class instrument cluster repairs but we can also successfully fix any other Mercedes-Benz cluster: A-Class, C-Class, E-Class, CLK, SLK, etc.

You are welcome to browse our Mercedes cluster repair section. You’ll easily check how much money you can save, comparing to the dealership alternative of replacing the whole instrument cluster.

When passing the MOT there is a part on the vehicle that we drivers don’t usually take much attention to but that can make our vehicle to fail the test. That is the instrument cluster or, as the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency refers it to on its MOT inspection manual, the speedometer.

There are three reasons, related to the speedometer, that can cause a vehicle to fail its MOT exam:

1. If the speedometer is not fitted into the car or van.
2. If the speedometer is incomplete, clearly inoperative or if the glass is completely broken or missing.
3. If the speedometer cannot be illuminated.

Any of these three reasons will prevent your vehicle to pass the MOT and thus, you will have repeat the test. You will only have to pay for a partial retest fee if you have this issue fixed by the test centre or by an external repair centre in a maximum of 10 days; otherwise, you will have to get a full retest on your vehicle.

If you are experiencing any of the above issues on your dashboard, our advice is that you send it to us before passing the MOT, so that we can fix it promptly, before the first attempt. Alternatively, if your car has already failed its MOT due to one of these reasons, you can still send it to us so that we can try to repair it in the 10 days time limit; we will try our best, although the turnaround time could be conditioned by the need to order any parts for the repair.

In any case, if your instrument cluster is very dimmed or does not have any backlight at all, or if its glass is completely broken, or if the LCD display is very pixelated or has dead pixels, or if the mileage, speed, temperature or any other relevant information cannot be read, please contact us so that we can give you the best possible technical advise in order to have your cluster repaired as soon as possible.

At Autotronics we care about our customers’ confidentiality online. That is why we have implemented the secure HTTPS protocol on our website, so that our visitors can be sure that every communication between them and our servers is completely confidential and secure.

For the non-techie, HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure) is an evolution of the classical HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) Internet protocol that puts the emphasis in security and user protection. By visiting a website with the HTTPS protocol the user benefits from three layers of protection:

1. Data encryption: All the information exchanged between the user and the website is encrypted, so that nobody external else can “see” or steal it.
2. Data integrity: The data sent via a HTTPS communication cannot be altered without this alteration being detected.
3. Authentication: The user is protected against man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks as both parts are authenticated all the time.

HTTPS protocol makes web browsing and online shopping much more secure. That’s why it is so important nowadays to buy from trusted sites that implement this tool. You can easily check if a site is secure by looking on the navigation bar and looking for a green lock next to the website URL. If the lock is there, the site is secure and you can buy online with all confidence.

We at Autotronics have made a great effort to adapt our website to the HTTPS protocol, so that when one of our customers visit our website or want to buy our repair services online he/she can be completely safe.

Therefore, our vehicle electronics repair service is not only affordable, professional and fast; it is now also secure.

If you are having problems with the Electronic Ignition Switch (EIS) of your Mercedes-Benz, you would probably have already checked the crazy prices Mercedes dealerships charge for replacing the module.

At Autotronics we offer a much more affordable alternative to replacing the whole EIS / EZS unit: repairing it! Our professional EIS repair service always comes with a limited lifetime warranty, so you can rest assured you are covered for as long as you own the vehicle.

The only downside some of our customers find before sending their EIS to us is that they think they don’t have the tools or knowledge necessary to remove the unit from the vehicle. If you are in the same situation, don’t worry because, contrary to the first impression, removing the ignition switch from your Mercedes is not a difficult process at all. With some manual skills, a bit of patience and just a screwdriver, you can also have your EIS / EZS removed from your vehicle in less than 5 minutes.

All you need is to do is removing the outer ring from the ignition switch, turning it anti-clockwise with the help of a screwdriver, and then pull the EIS from the inside of the dashboard. You can also use a specific tool to remove the outer ring; this tool will cost you less than £10 online.

To pull the EIS from the back of the dashboard, the quickest option is to remove the bottom pedal panel unscrewing it and then just pulling the EIS with your hands. In some models, you may also try to remove the light switches panel, the vent panel or the instrument cluster, so that you can pull the EIS from those holes. In any case, the procedure would be same: to remove the panel with the help of a screwdriver and then to pull the EIS from its position.

Last step is the easiest one: just unplug the EIS from its leads. Once you have the EIS unit in your hands you will notice that it is a small black box with some serial numbers written down in one of the sides; they are the Mercedes-Benz part numbers and differ depending on the vehicle’s chassis number (W169, W203, W211, etc.). You can call with these part numbers and the description of the fault, so that our engineers can give you the best possible technical advise about your EIS problem.

If you are still struggling while removing the EIS unit from the dash, please do not hesitate to contact our technical department as well. They will be delighted to help you.

As with most things in life, there are two sides on the DPF removal debate table.

For some, Diesel Particle Filters (DPFs) are key to keeping our diesel vehicles’ emissions under control; thus, they claim they should not be removed from the vehicles by any means. For the purpose of this post, we will call this group the “environmentalists”.
Undoubtedly, DPF filters help reduce the particle matter that escape through the exhaust gasses of diesel vehicles. That is their major function, they trap the particle matter or soot from the exhaust gasses, only letting the gasses flow. Some studies have concluded that the soot emissions can be reduced by up to 80% using DPF filters.

However, a second group of users, which we will call the “sceptics”, argue that the process of removing the accumulated soot from the filters - called regeneration - can indeed cause even worse harm than not having any filter at all. Incredible as it may seem, this group claims that by burning the accumulated soot during the regeneration process, the resulting particles are much more hazardous for human health than the original particle matter. That’s because the emitted particles after the regeneration process are tiny comparing to the original ones (20nm Vs 100nm). Some health studies have concluded that these smaller particles can penetrate deeper into the human body and that the effects on the long-term health should be revaluated.

For the uninitiated, the active regeneration cycle is a process that takes place every 300 miles approximately where high heat is introduced into the exhaust system in order to burn the accumulated soot. As this process can take up to 10 minutes to complete, city drivers that don’t do a lot of miles can find difficulties to finish the regeneration process in full. Hence, soot can build up in the DPF, blocking it and potentially causing severe damage to other engine components.

In these cases, there are two possible alternatives: sometimes driving the car at high speeds in the motorway can trigger an active regeneration process; but if this doesn’t work, the other alternative is taking the car to the garage for a forced regeneration or, if not possible, a filter replacement. The cost for the latter alternative can be of up to £1,000, so it is not a cheap option. Obviously, the “sceptics” also put this argument over the debate table, as cleaning the DPF filter can result in an expensive invoice for the customer.

Last, we must mention the legal consequences of having the DPF removed. Since 2014 it is illegal to have the Diesel Particle Filter removed from a vehicle in the UK, when the vehicle was fitted with the system in the first place. So, even if a removed DPF system would be very difficult to be spotted during a MOT inspection if the user just removes the internal filter and the vehicle still complies with the emissions regulations, DPF removal service must only be used under the customer’s responsibility.

Please bear in mind that in many other countries, outside the European Union, it is completely legal to have the DPF filter disabled. And that it will bring several advantages to the user, such as a better fuel economy, an increased power, a sharper response, a better overall performance and a longer engine life expectancy.

We pride ourselves to have sorted out instrument cluster problems for hundreds of happy customers. In this post, we would like to share some of the most common issues our clients were experiencing before sending their speedometers to us. And how we managed to solve them.

One common issue, probably the most common one in fact, relates to the fuel and/or temperature gauges. When these gauges, or any other gauge, start to play up, either being too high or too low, the best thing to do is to send the dashboard to us so that our engineers can properly check it and repair it.

Another common problem with instrument clusters is the one related to backlight failure, being it intermittent or constant. If your dashboard is completely dead, with no backlight on it, our engineers can try to repair it or alternatively change the LCD display for another working one.

Also associated with LCD displays, we have received many clusters with pixelated and fading displays, as well as screens with dead pixels on them. At Autotronics, we can fix all these problems by replacing and testing your existing display, for a fraction of the dealership cost.

Our customers have saved tons of money by choosing our repair service over the dealers’ alternative, which in all cases was to replace the whole cluster with a new unit. They have saved some precious time too, as the waiting time for a dealer to receive the ordered items from the factory are usually in the order of around one month.

If you are also experiencing problems with your instrument cluster and need a professional and cost-effective repair service, don’t think twice and order our service online. You won’t be disappointed.

We’ve all been there. Electronic components can fail, leaving us with a feel of despair as we must figure out how to do things that our device did for us automatically before. It can happen with your smartphone, with your TV remote, with your heating system, with your Internet router… and also with your vehicle’s remote key fob.

Sometimes the internal components of your remote key stop working as they should, either intermittently or completely. Here we have compiled 5 things that can go wrong with your remote key:

1. LED light is not flashing on the remote and/or the central locking is not working at all.
2. The doors can be operated with the remote key sometimes but other times the central locking doesn’t respond to the remote buttons.
3. The operational range of the remote key fob is shorter and shorter every time.
4. When inserting the key or key card into the ignition barrel or slot nothing happens and I get a message of the kind: “key not detected”.
5. The remote key seems to be very light and is not operative when pressing the remote buttons or when inserting the blade into the ignition.

Luckily, we can repair your remote so that it works as it should again.

In the first two cases, the problem can lie in the circuit board inside the remote. Even if you change the battery, the remote can still fail to work. If this is your case, we can help you out by repairing whatever components are damaged inside the casing.

If your remote fail to operate central locking from a long distance, the problem can be related to a low battery issue. In this case, you can send us your remote so that we can check the battery level, replace it for a new one and refurbish all the internal components.

If your key is not detected by the car, van or motorbike, the situation can point to an immobiliser issue. In this case, you should send us your immobiliser unit and keys, so that our engineers can check all the components and rectify whatever fault they find on the immobiliser.

Last, if you feel that the remote key is very light, this could mean that it is basically empty. Although it seems impossible to believe that the problem can be so simple, you would be surprised by the amount of empty cases that we receive. A car key without a transponder inside will not start the car, as this chip is responsible for disarming the immobiliser; equally, a key fob without a circuit board inside won’t operate central locking remotely because, as obvious as it sounds, there wouldn’t be any switch to activate when pressing the buttons. This can happen when buying a second-hand car with a non-tested spare key or when trying to change the battery and forgetting to transfer the transponder chip.

In all cases, except for the last one of course, we can help you with your broken remote key fob by professionally repairing it. Just buy the repair service selecting your remote from our extensive inventory, adding it to the basket and proceeding with the checkout process; then, send it to us by recorded or special delivery and we will have it repaired in 2 to 3 working days, and we will send it back to you via express courier service.

If you can’t find your vehicle’s remote in our inventory, don’t worry, we may still be able to help you. Please give us a call at 0116 276 7054 or send us an email to sales@autotronics.co.uk. Our customer service team will be glad to assist you with any remote issues you many have.

You can now benefit from our exclusive online offer in instrument cluster repairs and have a 20% discount in your repair service.

Our extensive speedometer repair range now covers most of the major car, van and truck manufacturers, so most likely you will find your specific dashboard on our website catalogue. If that’s not the case, you can always call us at 0116 276 7054 to speak to one of our engineers about your faulty cluster; we will be delighted to solve all your queries and technical questions.

Some of the most recurring faults our R&D department has found on broken clusters are: faulty gauges, pixelated displays, fading LCDs, dead pixels on screens, no back light at all, etc. In any case, whatever the fault within your instrument cluster you can rest assured that our fully skilled and trained team will be able to repair it.

And now, with an amazing 20% discount in all our cluster repair services, the repairing alternative is even more cost-effective compared to taking your speedo to your dealership.

For any enquiry or further assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact us via email at sales@autotronics.co.uk or give us a call at 0116 276 7054. We will be glad to speak to you.