I've owned my car for nine months. When I posted the news of my purchase on Facebook, I included a photo of the beautiful car and for contrast, a photo of the CE panel. Not of my panel, though - I've never looked at it. I was trying to go for a full year. Then I'd make a splashy announcement about it, as encouragement to fellow autoelectrophobes.

But I really ought to check the cruise control fuse before ordering a rebuilt CC brain. I thought you all should know, since the sight of this panel might overwhelm my normal medications, and trigger an abusive DeOxit dependency.

 

It looks a lot more intimidating than it really is.

I took mine out and went through it. Nothing really wrong with it, but a nice couple days project in the winter. Now I know it's in good shape.

Sharkskin's writeup on it is the one I followed.

Take your time, take notes and pics. I also had a big sheet of paper that I drew an oversized diagram of the CE panel onto and used as a "place holder" for everything I removed.

Alan has very nice diagrams of the panel layouts too. Make sure you have one for your model year. They vary.

 

This one?

http://members.rennlist.com/sharkski...04-Bzzzzzt.htm

 

Take plenty of pictures and maybe take a sharpy marker and number each of the plugs and relays.

You'll be fine...but if you never get it running again...I'd like first dibs.

Brian.

 

Just don't look at the back of it....

 

Yup.

But go ahead and look at the back. Don't touch, for God's sake don't unplug anything, but go ahead and look.

It's very intimidating to look at. The thought of trying to rebuild one from a bare piece of white plastic is...

Daunting.

But following Sharkskin's writeup is pretty straightforward and simple.

Again, I didn't have any problems, nor did I notice any improvement.

But it's a very "soul satisfying" task to accomplish. And it helps to know that whatever future electrical problems surface, it probably isn't related to the CE Panel.

 

That's exactly the word that came to mind as I was reading his write up.

But like many projects (beyond just working on the car), taking your time & documenting your steps appears to be key.

This feels like a good "the wife and kids are gone and the house is quiet" project. Doesn't seem like one where constant interruptions would be a good thing

 

I bought my '87 S4 automatic in November. This past weekend I, too, took the plunge, and took out the CE, cleaned the relays and fuses and re-installed, essentially without a hitch.

I was hoping the clean up would fix a couple of things. So far, I did notice that the passenger side rear hatch switch / motor seems to work, which it didn't before. But then a new problem cropped up - I cannot get the rear hatch to close / lock now. But I digress.

The windows seem to raise and lower better, and the passenger mirror controls worked only intermittently after the CE clean up. So definitely that's one problem not directly connected to the CE panel (IMHO).

My cruise control wasn't working before and I haven't tested it since the clean up. I'm hoping that it came back online, but it may be a bit before I get to testing it. I really can't take my 928 out with an unclosed hatch.

Cleaning up the CE was therapeutic to say the least.

SharkSkin's guide was invaluable, even though his write-up is for an older model.