Please help. My daughter's beetle is a 2000. Over a hundredK. My mechanic just discovered that her dashboard instruments have been contaminated by seepage of coolant from the sensor into the wiring harness cluster. All dash lights are malfunctioning, and the speedometer too. Mechanic claims that VW should pay for this. . .or at least a portion. It is a manufacturers defect which caused this problem. They have a printed bulletin that suggests that VW has admitted that this has occured in some models, due to faulty design/parts. How should I approach this problem? And if VW will not fix it, what should I expect to pay a mechanic ?

 

Are you saying that coolant leaked from the coolant temperature sensor into the instrument panel wiring harness? If so that's impossible. If your saying that coolant got in to the ct sensor harness and fried something that might be possible. The bad thing about that is those wires run through the ecu (computer) and then to the cluster. In that case I would just have to guess that that would be a very expensive fix. If Volkswagen admitted it then that doesn't mean anything. If it is a recall then it will be free.

 

I appreciate your advice. It IS confusing.