Brake Switch Failures (2000 Beetle and 2003 Passat)

My 2003 Passat 1.8T station wagon's battery was dead when I tried to drive home last Monday evening. The headlight switch was off, but a coworker told me that my lights had been on earlier in the day. We jump started the Passat and I drove it home successfully.

The next morning, when I parked at work and exited the car, the taillights were on. I reentered the car and stomped the brake pedal several times, and the taillights eventually went off.

I had noticed for some weeks that the cruise control would only engage about every other time I tried to set it. It makes sense now - the brake switch was occasionally stuck on, preventing the cruise control from engaging. Anyway, I took the Passat to the dealer, duplicated the taillight stuck on condition for them, and they replaced the brake switch.

Looking back over maintenance records, I see that my wife's 2000 New Beetle has had four brake light switch replacements - the first three all failed open preventing the transmission shift lock from releasing; the fourth was changed preemptively this January under the recent N412 recall.

The brake switch on the Passat was the first VW brake switch I've had fail in the opposite direction - stuck closed. From here on out, my practice will be to check that the brake lights are off when leaving the car. That's certainly not something that I would ever have expected to have to do on a routine basis...

I'm quite disappointed in VW component quality. Not only have I never experienced brake switch failures on any other make of cars, but the plastic handles on both the Beetle and the Passat's oil dipsticks broke off. I definitely anticipate trading these cars in sooner that I had planned based on their demonstrated unreliability to date - count me as an owner who has not been impressed.

Reply to
Donald Prevett
Loading thread data ...

passats use a different brake light switch and failure in rare. The other switch is another story, but the blame goes on the comapny who makes it for VW and not VW. Like many auto/truck makers they don't make many oif their own parts anymore. "demonstrated unreliability " sound like you got a few good VW's if that's all that was needed since new.

Reply to
news.wildblue.net

They are built to specs provided by the car company. The blame could either be at the car company which provided inadequate specs to the supplier it subcontracts a part to (e.g. telling the supplier to make parts meeting some specific durability standard when it was really necessary to have a higher durability standard), or the supplier who failed to produce parts of the required specs or quality.

Reply to
Timothy J. Lee

Reply to
none2u

to VW's spec... that's if the company really did build them to VW standards and not cheat VW inorder to make a more profit. But yes VW has messed a lot of things up.

Reply to
Lost In Space/Woodchuck

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.