Red dot on mileage display??

[GM525]

Hello all,
I have owned my 525ixt for about4 months now. It shows 73k miles on the clock. The service book was "lost" so I got it for a good price. I know 2 previous owners so I thought the 73k could be genuine. However after a few weeks driving her, I knew - by the overall feel of the car that it had probably done at least twice that mileage.........so I decided to do some digging into its history!
I contacted a dealer who had it in for repair with a lot less miles on the clock in 1999 - in fact only 12 miles!!. It is a 1993 car!
Anyway I got info from Shoguns tech page (!) and checked the vin no. in the display which is correct. I have since heard about the red dot on the display if the miles have been tampered with. The thing is though, when I look straight at the display there is a shadowed dot next to the small KM sign, but if I look at the display from an angle the dot appears to be a faded red colour! Does this sound normal or has anybody had a similar experience??
Does anyone have any pics of one that has been tampered with so I can compare?
I have attached a pic but having probs displaying it.
Thanks in advance!

[ryan roopnarine]

the red dot indicates that someone has changed the mileage coding plug, which might be why the mileage seems off to you.

[winfred]

if the dot was active it would be as bright and visable as the numbers, i don't know what it takes to trigger the dot as i've interchanged clusters, motherboards, and code plugs on several cars and never triggered one

[Bill R.]

2/89 and newer clusters, I've always been under the impression that the red dot is only lit during the self test procedure if the coding plug has been changed and the mileage is different...I don't think it stays lit all the time.









QUOTE=winfred]if the dot was active it would be as bright and visable as the numbers, i don't know what it takes to trigger the dot as i've interchanged clusters, motherboards, and code plugs on several cars and never triggered one[/QUOTE]

[tdgard]

So the red dot should NOT light during the self test at all? Mine does when the rest of the dash lights up during the self test.

[Javier]

this is to test every indicator is working properly.

Javier

[Dan in NZ]

I know that on early instrument clusters, the mileage display only read up to 299,996, then stopped. The recommended solution was to replace the coding plug with a new one, so the mileage is back at zero, but with the red dot illuminated to indicate that 299,996 had to be added to the number displayed.

This was the case on E32's, not certain about E34's.

[shogun]

among them is a training manual for technicians for instrument clusters and check control. Maybe something on this subject is in there. More than 20 pages to read.
Have a look there.
By the way, the newer cluster go up to 999.999 miles. That should be enough, I assume
click here and check the manual.

[Tcdoe]

Checked Bruno's and every other site I could think of with no success. How do you do the instrument cluster self test?