A young friend of mine has an old 1.8L petrol Passat (about 8-10years old
maybe), that intermittently flattens it's battery.

Sometimes when he locks the car, instead of a single flash from the
indicators, they will carry on flashing for a while. He's been told that
his car sometimes starts flashing for no reason whilst parked.

This would seem to be the cause of the drain but where would be the best
place to start looking for the fault? Is this a common one? He's already
replaced the flasher relay.

Tim

On 09/07/2012 11:36, Tim wrote:
A young friend of mine has an old 1.8L petrol Passat (about 8-10years old
maybe), that intermittently flattens it's battery.

Sometimes when he locks the car, instead of a single flash from the
indicators, they will carry on flashing for a while. He's been told that
his car sometimes starts flashing for no reason whilst parked.

This would seem to be the cause of the drain but where would be the best
place to start looking for the fault? Is this a common one? He's already
replaced the flasher relay.

Tim

VW did have a spate of hazard light switch failures about that time,
IIRC. It's a bit of a needle in a haystack problem though.

Chris Bartram wrote:
On 09/07/2012 11:36, Tim wrote:
A young friend of mine has an old 1.8L petrol Passat (about 8-10years old
maybe), that intermittently flattens it's battery.

Sometimes when he locks the car, instead of a single flash from the
indicators, they will carry on flashing for a while. He's been told that
his car sometimes starts flashing for no reason whilst parked.

This would seem to be the cause of the drain but where would be the best
place to start looking for the fault? Is this a common one? He's already
replaced the flasher relay.

Tim

VW did have a spate of hazard light switch failures about that time,
IIRC. It's a bit of a needle in a haystack problem though.

Yeah. I suspect water ingress somewhere and anticipate a frustrating and
expensive search.

Tim

Tim wrote:
A young friend of mine has an old 1.8L petrol Passat (about 8-10years
old maybe), that intermittently flattens it's battery.

Sometimes when he locks the car, instead of a single flash from the
indicators, they will carry on flashing for a while. He's been told
that his car sometimes starts flashing for no reason whilst parked.

This would seem to be the cause of the drain but where would be the
best place to start looking for the fault? Is this a common one?
He's already replaced the flasher relay.

Tim

According to Autodata they had a problem with water getting by the pollen
filter housing and entering the central locking module. There was a
modified seal available, but you could probably seal it with silicone or
something. You could even disconnect the central locking fuse and see if
the flat battery problem disappears. Water in the footwell would be a
giveaway

On 09/07/2012 16:46, Mrcheerful wrote:
Tim wrote:
A young friend of mine has an old 1.8L petrol Passat (about 8-10years
old maybe), that intermittently flattens it's battery.

Sometimes when he locks the car, instead of a single flash from the
indicators, they will carry on flashing for a while. He's been told
that his car sometimes starts flashing for no reason whilst parked.

This would seem to be the cause of the drain but where would be the
best place to start looking for the fault? Is this a common one?
He's already replaced the flasher relay.

Tim

According to Autodata they had a problem with water getting by the pollen
filter housing and entering the central locking module. There was a
modified seal available, but you could probably seal it with silicone or
something. You could even disconnect the central locking fuse and see if
the flat battery problem disappears. Water in the footwell would be a
giveaway


Ding!
My friend had this. Passenger foot-well awash with water, CL not
working, all sorts of odd lights coming on, windows opening, battery
going flat.
Cost a lot of money to sort out the heavily corroded wiring/connectors/ecu.
Dave

--
Blow my nose to email me

On 09/07/2012 18:01, snot wrote:
On 09/07/2012 16:46, Mrcheerful wrote:

According to Autodata they had a problem with water getting by the pollen
filter housing and entering the central locking module. There was a
modified seal available, but you could probably seal it with silicone or
something. You could even disconnect the central locking fuse and see if
the flat battery problem disappears. Water in the footwell would be a
giveaway


Ding!
My friend had this. Passenger foot-well awash with water, CL not
working, all sorts of odd lights coming on, windows opening, battery
going flat.
Cost a lot of money to sort out the heavily corroded wiring/connectors/ecu.
Dave


Ran across this website some time back,

http://www.headfuzz.co.uk/vw_ccm

--
Adrian C

Adrian C wrote:
On 09/07/2012 18:01, snot wrote:
On 09/07/2012 16:46, Mrcheerful wrote:

According to Autodata they had a problem with water getting by the pollen
filter housing and entering the central locking module. There was a
modified seal available, but you could probably seal it with silicone or
something. You could even disconnect the central locking fuse and see if
the flat battery problem disappears. Water in the footwell would be a
giveaway


Ding!
My friend had this. Passenger foot-well awash with water, CL not
working, all sorts of odd lights coming on, windows opening, battery
going flat.
Cost a lot of money to sort out the heavily corroded wiring/connectors/ecu.
Dave


Ran across this website some time back,

http://www.headfuzz.co.uk/vw_ccm


Thanks for all the feedback folks. He has reported back that he does
indeed have a water ingress problem. I've forwarded all the info and web
links.

Tim