Ingo is correct on the parking lamp thing although I'm surprised that a US
> or Canadian spec VW was wired this way. The US spec ones definitely were
> not and to my knowledge the Canadian ones weren't either (Canadian and US
> spec VWs were pretty much the same in terms of lighting due to similar
> lighting regulations and requirements except for permitting both Euro and US
> headlamps and VWoA kept US headlamps on all US and Canadian models from the
> factory). Are you sure you don't have a Euro-market car that someone
> privately imported into North America? Or one that was US/Canadian but
> modified to be more like the Euro ones? I'm also thinking that you have a
> Eurospec model on your hands if the marker bulb is *inside* the headlamp.
> VW put combined the marker bulb in the bumper with the turn signal on US and
> Canadian models.
Thought so. I'm actually not in either US or Canada, and I always wondered why you guys have both the front turning signals always turned on in your photos. Now I understand that it's the marker lamp. On my Jetta, the marker lamp is indeed located inside the main headlamp as a whole unit.
On the 3rd brake light thing, it's either wired wrong as Ingo said or
> there's something wrong with the ground circuit. Peel back your trunk
> carpeting in the corners and look for a batch of ground wires (will probably
> be brown in color and may be bunched together in more than one wire per
> bundle) and they should all secure to the car's body, usually in a ring
> terminal with a screw through it. There may be bundle each side. When the
> 3rd brake light and/or the turn signal bulb flashes, is it the correct
> brightness or is it dimmer than it should be? If it's the same brightness
> as normal, it's probably wired wrong with the incorrect 12V source. If it's
> dimmer than normal, it's probably a ground issue.
I fixed the 3rd brake light, BTW, it was wired incorrectly. There are some extra contact points on the tail lights circuitry, and I wired the 3rd brake light from the brake light circuit, and it all works nicely.
David