Climatronic LCD displays and LEDs flickering, now dead, but unit still works?!

[I gotta habit]

Hi all, am hoping that someone might be able to shed some light on this...

I bought a 2005 mk5 GTI about 4 months ago: beautiful condition, well-loved by its last owner, all was well with the world, birds singing and all.

A couple months in I noticed that the LCD temperature displays and the LEDs in the Climatronic display in the centre column would occasionally flicker, seemingly in time with the engine turning over.

This was very random, as occasionally I'd turn on the car and all would be fine. No flickering. And then the problem would come back, seemingly without rhyme nor reason (at one point I remember thinking that the lights would be more likely to flicker when it had been raining, but maybe that's a false positive). Adjusting the intensity of the dash lights via the little knob near the headlamp control didn't seem to help the issue. 

It did this for a couple months, but now the Climatronic LEDs and LCDs have gone completely dark.

No other lights (dash, interior or exterior) are affected, and the Climatronic system (air and heated seats) still works a charm.

I checked the battery and alternator and all is good there. Checked the fuses, and (if I indeed checked the right fuses) they're all sound.

I guess the next step would be to open up the centre column and take a look at the wiring harness for the Climatronic, yeah? Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance, this is a real nuisance.

[chigmuss]

I'd be tempted to try and swap out the climatronic panel for a known good one. Once into the console you'll be able to inspect the wiring.
Sorry I don't have a more tech reply.
The backlights went on mine ages ago and I picked up one off here in the classifieds. Since the classifieds seems fairly inactive now - ebay or a breakers might be your only hope, unless you fancy having a laugh down at your VW dealer parts department. If most other parts are anything to go by it'll be a fairly ridiculous price I'd imagine.

[I gotta habit]

Thanks Chigmuss, I guess I'll open her up and take a look before buying a replacement... reason being, it's not just the backlights that have gone but the LCD displays, too: they used to be visible in daylight (without backlighting) but are now blank. I'll report back with my findings. If still no joy, ebay here I come..!

[I gotta habit]

OK, so I took the centre console apart, removed the head unit and then the Climatronic panel: wiring harnesses were in good shape, all connections solid.

A more comprehensive search in other Golf forums suggests that this is a common problem in older iterations of the R32 (backlights start flickering and eventually die) but no one could come up with a fix for it. So it goes.

So yeah, looks like a replacement MkV Climatronic panel would be the next step. At this rate I'm thinking I'll just ignore the issue and continue as before. The lack of illumination is annoying but hardly a gamestopper.