Outside temperature LCD readout, W124
 

Recently, on my 1993 400E, the bottom half of the LCD outside temperature readout went blank, sometimes it's completely blank. Before the readout acted up, the readings were incorrect. Related threads from Berrie indicate incorrect readings are due to a bad sensor. What about the half blank readout? Is that from a bad sensor or bad LCD? I got a price of $489 for a new LCD; is that possible?!

way too much money, the sensor is outside on the inside of the front bumper and the lcd readout is reached by pulling out the instrument cluster and simply removing 2 screws, I would look for a used one or buy a used insturment cluster and take the readout from that, removing the cluster is easy, search the site for pictures and instructions, the only thing I recommend is to bend a couple nails instead of wire to use to extract the cluster as the wires will bend and the nails will not and it will be easier to remove