About the fading dash, I've seen that on other cars as well. The previous owner of my car said he replaced the bulbs in the dash and it's been working fine so far. Not sure how much work that was.

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2004 VW Jetta TDI (manual)

Past MB's: '96 E300D, '83 240D, '82 300D, '87 300D, '87 420SEL