General weird Stilo Instrument Cluster

[DJH101]

I've just bought a 52 Stilo 1.2 with 69,000 on the clock. Great little runner but the Instrument display has me confused. The LCD panel has a metalic edged tape across the top of the LCD panel. I can see the mileage and temperature but not the top line. This is a real pain because I accidently set the speed alert and the damn thing kept going off everytime I went over 15Km/hour. If you can't see the top line, its real difficult to unset. Anyway - I've managed to stop the beeping.
Does anyone have any idea why someone would have taped the top line of the LCD ???
Could it be something dodgy ?

 

[ChrisMClark]

That's where the date's usually displyed, maybe the previous owner was datophobic in all seriousness, I can't think of ANY reason at all why someone would do that. Have you tried contacting the previous owner?

 

[Rich]

Perhaps the display died and the last owner bodged it to fix it? There's a set going on ebay for £30

 

[Deckchair5]

Perhaps the chap had a low threshold of tolerance and couldn't stand the SERVICE DUE message any more.

Take the dash clocks unit out and have a look, it's a 10min job
(Pulls the tape off and the whole unit falls to bits)

 

[DJH101]

I've taken the instrument panel apart and have found that's it not tape but someone has sprayed the top line with black paint and then added a narrow strip of aluminum tape to clean up the sprayed edge. I removed the paint and reconnected the instrument panel.

The two messages that were previously hidded were "Service Due" and "Airbag Failure" which seems to go away after a few minutes.
Obviously whoever did this was not part of this forum and read the guide how to fix the airbag warning problem.

Makes me wonder what else this guy did to the car !
For the moment I'm happy and the car is driving really well .....result !

 

[Argonought]

That's classic!

I wonder if the guy also smokes and tapes over the "Smoking Damages your Health" warning every time he buys another packet

Good result

 

[ChrisMClark]

I use those 'smoking stickers' that you stick over the warnings...stuff like 'Smoking makes you look cool' and 'Don't let children breathe your smoke...make them buy their own'.