U0457: Invalid Data Received From Information Centre A
What to do
The short version: stop trusting what the screen tells you, but the car is fine to drive.
The information display in your dashboard does not measure anything itself — every number on it arrives from another computer in the car. This code means it has been sent something that does not make sense.
The reason that matters is that a wrong number is worse than a blank screen. A blank screen tells you not to rely on it. A screen showing a believable figure does not. So until this is fixed: fill up on the fuel gauge and the trip meter rather than the range readout, check your tyre pressures with a proper gauge rather than the display, and treat any ice or temperature warning as a rough guide only.
One thing to insist on if the module has to be replaced. On many cars this unit stores the recorded mileage. A second-hand one carries the mileage of the car it came out of, which is both a technical problem and, in most countries, a legal one. Any replacement must be programmed to your car with the correct mileage, and you should be given documentation showing it.
Ask for the other stored codes as well — the display is usually just repeating a wrong figure it was given, and the fault is wherever that figure came from.
What this code means
The driver information centre is broadcasting data that cannot be accepted as true. See U0400 for the family's framing.
An information centre measures nothing. It is the text display between the dials or in the centre of the dash — trip data, range, service messages, tyre pressures, settings, warnings written in words rather than symbols — and every figure on it arrived from somewhere else.
That makes the failure mode here different from anywhere else in the family, and it is worth stating precisely: what the driver reads may be wrong.
A blank display is a nuisance. A wrong one is a hazard, because the driver acts on it. A blank screen tells you not to trust it; a screen showing a plausible number does not. The figures that matter are the ones a journey gets planned around: remaining range, distance to empty, tyre pressures, outside temperature and any warning that has stopped being true.
So the practical instruction is to stop trusting the numbers rather than to stop driving. Fill up on the gauge and the odometer rather than the range readout, check tyre pressures with a gauge, and treat an ice warning as advisory in either direction.
One thing specific to this module and genuinely expensive to get wrong. On many vehicles the odometer is stored in the instrument cluster or information centre rather than only in the engine module, so a second-hand display module brings another vehicle's recorded mileage with it. That is a coding problem, and in most jurisdictions it is also a legal one. A replacement here must be programmed to the vehicle, and the mileage transferred properly and documented.
Otherwise the family's rule holds: the display is repeating what it was told, so a code naming the module that supplies the wrong figure is the actual fault.
Likely causes
Start here
- Faulty receiving module input · specialist
- Corroded or loose connector · easy
- Module not coded to the vehicle · specialist
- Damaged data bus wiring · moderate
Less common
- Second hand module locked to another vehicle · specialist
- Failed instrument cluster · specialist
Symptoms
Components involved
Information, not instruction
CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.
Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
Community experience
Be the first to write this up
Nothing posted about this yet. Whatever you found is worth writing down — even a dead end saves someone the same afternoon.
What makes one worth reading:
- The car — make, model, year and engine. The same fault behaves differently on each.
- What you measured, not only what you replaced.
- What actually fixed it — or that nothing did, which is worth knowing too.
Sign in or create an account to add what you found about U0457.