grabo

After a recent oil change, we've noticed that now the trip odometer in our 1998 A4 B5 quattro (32k miles - yes, 32k) frequently (more often than not) resets itself back to zero when the car is shut off.

As part of the oil change, I did remove the battery to clean the plenum (which was full of leaves and had a half-inch of water... ugh.. that's what we get for parking under a tree)

This is the cluster with the pixelated display in the center, with analog clock on the lower left. I had the display repaired a year and a half ago to fix the bad pixels.

I was thinking it could be the fuse for the always-on power line to the cluster. Checked it - it's fine. Also, a bad fuse here, I think, would cause the analog clock to stop working, and it's keeping perfect time, and pressing the button (I think the left one?) without a key in the ignition brings up the mileage, so it seems that the cluster is always getting power.

I was thinking it could be a low battery. It's only a year old (as is the alternator, which killed the last battery), and after sitting overnight, it's 12.4V or higher.

I was thinking that it could be a bad connection to the battery after I reconnected it. Posts and connectors are clean and tight, and there's no voltage drop between the posts and the cables.

Is this just the first symptom of a cluster that's probably going to have more problems, or am I missing something?