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May of bought a lemon "electrical fire"


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Get the misses a nice little 1.4 16v looks perfect and cheep. but get it home starts to rain so switch on the wipers and get a little puff of smoke out of the steering colum followed by the aromer of burning wire. It seems to be the rear wiper select that sets it off but the stalk wont selected fast only intermitant it wont move up at all. Is this anything anyone has come accross before. Is there a seperat fuse for the rear wiper if there is a short? I haven't opened it up yet ill have to wait till i can get it into work on monday.

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There's no such thing as phantom smoke. If you saw it then something has burnt, but bit necessarily seriously. You might need to replace some wiring if it's gone. Assuming it's electrical then it'll be due to high resistance somewhere, a wiring junction perhaps. You'll need to try track it down, look for melted wires from the steering column etc.

I would say hold off before judging it a lemon. Only a bit of duff wiring me thinks :)

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There's no such thing as phantom smoke. If you saw it then something has burnt, but bit necessarily seriously. You might need to replace some wiring if it's gone. Assuming it's electrical then it'll be due to high resistance somewhere, a wiring junction perhaps. You'll need to try track it down, look for melted wires from the steering column etc.

I would say hold off before judging it a lemon. Only a bit of duff wiring me thinks :)

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Quite a few people have posted up in the past about smoke from behind the steering wheel, often when using the indicators too. It usually means the stalk is worn out and needs replacing.

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To be fair the car is not a lemon just getting on abit 110,000, Just got a couple of bits that have sprung up and want to get them sorted before the inlaws get all judgmental. Its definatly electrical i know the smell to well i plan to pull the loom apart to make sure it hasn't found its way deeper. Just wondered if the switches throw a wobly after they get old and dusty. Would a short in the wiper circuit set off the service warning light ? (that was something that popped up that worried me more)

Apart from that just have to get a new handle for the passenger seat and figure out whats up with the passenger window.

Cheers guys

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To be fair the car is not a lemon just getting on abit 110,000, Just got a couple of bits that have sprung up and want to get them sorted before the inlaws get all judgmental. Its definatly electrical i know the smell to well i plan to pull the loom apart to make sure it hasn't found its way deeper. Just wondered if the switches throw a wobly after they get old and dusty. Would a short in the wiper circuit set off the service warning light ? (that was something that popped up that worried me more)

Apart from that just have to get a new handle for the passenger seat and figure out whats up with the passenger window.

Cheers guys

I think the service warning light is just on a ticker, after so many thousand miles it illuminates. I just ignore it to be honest.

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My GTI with 105k on the clock had a phantom puff the other year, then the wiper fuse kept blowing.

I replaced indicator and wiper stalks and the problem is no-more :-)

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