Date:         Fri, 14 Oct 94 12:53:09 CDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         jwk1@cec.wustl.edu (John William Kuthe)
Subject:      Re: Bosch starter relay numbers

Jackr@starfleet writes:

>Sorry for the delay, this is the first time I've driven the Rabbit since
>the question came up and I just haven't thought to look prior to this.
>This is the relay to cure the dreaded "It's got plenty of juice and I can
>jump it with a screwdriver, just not always with the key" problem I
>posted about last week.

I've had this problem, and after replacing the starter *and* the ignition
switch, I began to ask myself the question:

"Well, if it worked when the car was new, and it doesn't work now, is it really
a design deficiency? Were the engineers at VW really that clueless, or could it
be something else? Could it be, maybe <in an increasingly churchlady voice>

BAD ELECTRICAL CONTACT???????"

Well, I decided to trace the problem back from where I knew things worked. The
terminal on the starter solenoid certainly worked, so from there, where does
that little wire go? Hmmmm. Under the rear seat was an inline spade connector,
so convenient to test! Hooked up a hot waite from the very conveniently
accessable battery, tried it out, and guess what? It worked from there too! So,
tracing the wire up further to the ignition switch, I found another inline
spade connector in that mess of wires sometimes referred to as the back of the
dash (really the front). Unplug, set up test hot wire, test, and lo and behold,
it worked from there too!! Now, at this point, there was only about a foot of
wire left until I was back to the ignition switch, so I plugged this connector
back together and figured, what the hell, I'll try the ignition again.

It worked.

The simple action of unplugging and plugging those inline spade connectors
seemed to fix a problem that replacing the starter and ignition switch failed
to fix. Made me wonder if I needed the new stuff at all. Oh well, I have them
now.

This was on a '72 Beetle. I thought about writing to VW to complain that after
22 years, the inline spade connectors they used had developed enough electrical
resistanse to prevent enough current from getting to the solenoid, but then I
thought about it, and decided that a class action lawsuit was a better
alternative. But after paying a lawyer $2500 to research the case, and being
advised that I was a fool for paying $2500 for something any foole would know,
I decided to write this instead. :-) :-)

Peace,