VW - Fire hazard on wheels?
10-31-2004, 04:44 PM
#1
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I just thought I'd bring this to everyone's attention since it may (or may not)be somewhat important for those who work on and drive VWs alike...
We recently had an incident with a 2000 VW Passat wherein upon re-installing a JVC deck from being serviced, about 5 hours after the customer left the ignition wire apparently shorted to ground and caused some problems. I wasn't actually there to see any of this, but I can only assume the wire got pinched somehow when the radio was pushed back in. Now, by "problems," I mean the ignition wire essentially ignited and burnt off all the insulation from behind the deck to the main ignition harness, all the way to the source of the power, damaging pretty much everything in its vicinity. All told, it's about 6k in damage parts and labour to the vehicle, according to our friendly dealership.
Now... If you're like me - and I'm sure a few are because we've all been though this - when you've had too much coffee in the morning, or are just at the end of a 12-hour shift during remote start season, you get a little googly-eyed and accidentally short something to ground... Normally you get a short spark, followed by a brief moment of disbelief and deer-in-headlights expression, but then you pop a new fuse in the panel, and Bob's your proverbial uncle. So this begs the question... How in the hell was this wire allowed to burn up???
Our senior tech and one of the managers went to the dealership to speak with their 17-year veteran technician and disuss some possibilities. Obviously when a 6k repair bill pops up, no one wants responsibility and fingers are pointed in every direction. The magic phrase that the VW tech threw out was, "You guys were the last ones to touch it." Fantastic. I was told he also said something to the extent of "ignition wires can't be fused." Interesting... So apparently if VW tech has to pull the factory radio for whatever reason, pops it back in and pinches the ignition wire, it's VW's problem if the wire melts into a pile of slag, but if anyone else touches the radio in any way, it's not?? You bet.
So I'm just looking for some input from anyone to see if anyone can confirm that these wires are in fact unfused, or if anyone's been through a similar experience. I know we've been talking about just connecting the ACC wire to constant because apparently it is fused, or even turning customers away if we can confirm that the ignition wire is unfused. This makes absolutely no sense to me, because if this is not an isolated incident and there are VWs out there with unfused ignitions, then there are a lot of potential fire hazards out there on the streets... Thanks for reading.
We recently had an incident with a 2000 VW Passat wherein upon re-installing a JVC deck from being serviced, about 5 hours after the customer left the ignition wire apparently shorted to ground and caused some problems. I wasn't actually there to see any of this, but I can only assume the wire got pinched somehow when the radio was pushed back in. Now, by "problems," I mean the ignition wire essentially ignited and burnt off all the insulation from behind the deck to the main ignition harness, all the way to the source of the power, damaging pretty much everything in its vicinity. All told, it's about 6k in damage parts and labour to the vehicle, according to our friendly dealership.
Now... If you're like me - and I'm sure a few are because we've all been though this - when you've had too much coffee in the morning, or are just at the end of a 12-hour shift during remote start season, you get a little googly-eyed and accidentally short something to ground... Normally you get a short spark, followed by a brief moment of disbelief and deer-in-headlights expression, but then you pop a new fuse in the panel, and Bob's your proverbial uncle. So this begs the question... How in the hell was this wire allowed to burn up???
Our senior tech and one of the managers went to the dealership to speak with their 17-year veteran technician and disuss some possibilities. Obviously when a 6k repair bill pops up, no one wants responsibility and fingers are pointed in every direction. The magic phrase that the VW tech threw out was, "You guys were the last ones to touch it." Fantastic. I was told he also said something to the extent of "ignition wires can't be fused." Interesting... So apparently if VW tech has to pull the factory radio for whatever reason, pops it back in and pinches the ignition wire, it's VW's problem if the wire melts into a pile of slag, but if anyone else touches the radio in any way, it's not?? You bet.
So I'm just looking for some input from anyone to see if anyone can confirm that these wires are in fact unfused, or if anyone's been through a similar experience. I know we've been talking about just connecting the ACC wire to constant because apparently it is fused, or even turning customers away if we can confirm that the ignition wire is unfused. This makes absolutely no sense to me, because if this is not an isolated incident and there are VWs out there with unfused ignitions, then there are a lot of potential fire hazards out there on the streets... Thanks for reading.
10-31-2004, 09:37 PM
#2
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They are unfused, I know the VW dealership here very well, and they have had a couple customers of theirs do this to their cars. One was a VW and the other was a Mercedes. 6K seems high though, I think they said the VW was about $3,000 total and the Mercedes was about $2,500 if I remember correctly.
11-01-2004, 07:32 AM
#3
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crazy yermans. i know it sucks but you gotta pay for it, like you said you guys were the last ones to work on it and by your own admission you guys pinched a wire. make it a store policy to fuse that wire on any further vw's you work on to avoid any futher 6k mishaps. that a frightening repair cost. i once worked for a guy that said for every dollar he pays tp fix things, you have to do 5 times that amount in profit to cover it. so whoever did it would have to do 25000$ in profit to cover for their mistake, that a lot of remote starts. i never looked at mistakes the same way again and that a story i tell all the guys that come to do installs for me, one lapse in judgement or just accidentally doing something can cost tons of $$$ to fix
11-01-2004, 02:06 PM
#4
500 Watt CAFz'r
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arent i a happy boy that there is no veedub dealership in kamloops. so theres a pretty decent lack of them to work on here. that does seem really high tho, 6k man i would hate to be the guy that put that deck in.
11-01-2004, 08:35 PM
#5
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They are unfused, I know the VW dealership here very well, and they have had a couple customers of theirs do this to their cars. One was a VW and the other was a Mercedes. 6K seems high though, I think they said the VW was about $3,000 total and the Mercedes was about $2,500 if I remember correctly.
crazy yermans. i know it sucks but you gotta pay for it, like you said you guys were the last ones to work on it and by your own admission you guys pinched a wire. make it a store policy to fuse that wire on any further vw's you work on to avoid any futher 6k mishaps. that a frightening repair cost. i once worked for a guy that said for every dollar he pays tp fix things, you have to do 5 times that amount in profit to cover it. so whoever did it would have to do 25000$ in profit to cover for their mistake, that a lot of remote starts. i never looked at mistakes the same way again and that a story i tell all the guys that come to do installs for me, one lapse in judgement or just accidentally doing something can cost tons of $$$ to fix
11-02-2004, 05:16 PM
#6
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Umm, there are no marrettes on a VW! It sounds like it has been messed with before. There are many cars that don't have fused 12V ignition wires. Also I do alot of VW's compared to some shops and have never seen any wires behind a deck that I would ever crush etc. The two cases I was talking about were complete systems that were DIYed by a couple idiots. I think it had more to do with the amp installs they did.
11-03-2004, 11:33 PM
#7
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Sorry, not marrettes... I think he meant the crimp-on end connectors. But apparently we've all been living under rocks. I mean, with the exception of older/rarer cars, this is the first time I've heard of a car having an unfused ignition. It seems like common, sense, but then again we are talking about car manufacturers here.
I'm not really sure what you mean... I've always found it's usually a little tricky to tuck the harness back and fit the aftermarket radios back in the slot, especially in models with just single DIN. It seems entirely possible to me that if you pushed hard enough, you could pinch one or more of the wires. Which brings up another interesting point... The aftermarket harness in that car showed no signs of melting or burning, so wherever the short occurred, it must have been deeper in the dash. That, and the short occurred some time after the customer left the store. Not that it matters now... People aren't interested in those details, because it's just too easy to lay blame when we were the last ones to touch the vehicle.
Also I do alot of VW's compared to some shops and have never seen any wires behind a deck that I would ever crush etc.
11-04-2004, 11:14 PM
#8
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O.K. so you are talking the wires in the deck's harness causing it to burn up? Because that is not what happened in either of the cars I was talking about. It was a large guage wire behind the dash that was pinched. Basically the same wires as you would tap into for a remote start. The wires going to the deck should definately be fused.
I know what you are talking about space being really tight, but I have always soldered and heatshrunk VW wiring and have no problems getting decks to fit with room to spare.
I know what you are talking about space being really tight, but I have always soldered and heatshrunk VW wiring and have no problems getting decks to fit with room to spare.
11-05-2004, 08:20 AM
#9
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Yes I am talking about the wires behind the radio. The alleged one that burnt up was the switched ignition feed to the aftermarket deck. I probably should've clarified a little better. But as I said, there were no signs of burning at/around the BHA1784 harness, which really makes me wonder what's really going on here.
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