Instrument panel display broken, cheapest way to access information?

The LCD panel of my Mercedes Benz A140 recently broke down and is impossible to read now:

Since this is such an old car, I don’t want to spend money on expensive repairs, e.g. sending the instrument cluster to a specialist.

I’ve identified the part number of the IC (A1685404011) and think I would be able to replace it on my own if I ordered a used one, but apparently one needs specialist equipment to configure them for a specific vehicle. Are the drawbacks of not doing this significant?

If one can read the information directly by connecting a reader to some ECU, I wouldn’t mind doing this either, if it’s the cheapest way. And I’m open to any other suggestions.

What is the most affordable way of accessing the information usually displayed by this LCD panel (odometer, errors, maybe more?)?