Anyone ever heard of something like this...

See further below, I originally thought my climate control went out but thats actually just where the wire melting issue started (or first symptom of it if it started elsewhere). The wires are fried and melted together from the console area all the way to the main harness behind the cluster. Shop says I'm lucky the car didn't burn up.

I just got the car Friday with a clean bill of health and previous owner never had one issue (had CPO warranty expired last month, never used) in 2+ years

*edit* They're saying it must be a wire exposed/melted. Guess we'll know after they take the whole dash out...

 

Sorry to hear of your issues, however, I would be using a self-resetting circuit breaker rather than fuse after fuse. Sounds like a chafed wire shorting out on something for sure.

 

I'd check the easy ones first...like the phone wire (any of the ones near the part you replaced)

 

Its somewhere behind the instrument cluster, taking the full dash out to find it now. Its blown out fuses in terminal 30 (12v constant) and terminal 15 (switched) which are two unrelated circuits...so whatever melted looks like it melted some other wires as well

I'm just really hoping it didn't fry the cluster or bad enough that the whole wiring harness would have to be replaced...

No confirmation yet on why, but a wire going to the climate control melted off the casing (even though that still turns on strangely enough). I'm thinking that must have heated up somewhere behind the dash and melted something else. Only thing I can think of at this point is the wires going to the climate control must have been touching the stereo casing behind the dash. Even that doesn't make sense though as the previous owner never had an issue, maybe the extra heat here in Texas is part of it.

People in extreme heat should probably make sure the wires to the ac aren't touching anything else back there...I can't think of any other explanation at this point.

 

I had a similar electrical problem somewhere behind the OEM radio (not modified) .....and lost the whole car when it caught fire from behind the dash....glad to see you're attending to it. It's a helpless feeling to stand beside the road watching it burn. I now have Halon fire extinguishers mounted in all my cars.

 

Ouch, well at least this makes one more case of some electrical issue - the tech's nor anything I've found online have ever heard of something like this on a TT.

I had the car towed from the dealer today to Ruf, I just have had bad experiences with dealers in the past and trust Ruf to be more straight up with me. They aren't really any cheaper but for example they already have told me they have someone who can refurbish the cluster if it got zapped for a few hundred vs. the dealer saying I would have to have a new one at $2k+. I'm still holding out that only 1 or 2 wires got fried and it can be repaired without a whole new harness and cluster, we'll see tomorrow...

 

Well its confirmed it started behind the ac near the stereo and wires melted from heat. From what I'm told it was a time bomb ready to go off anytime and I may have just accelerated it driving it home. It melted all sorts of wires together and the entire wiring harness (everything but the engine) has to be replaced.

Looks The wiring harness and install is going to cost close to $10,000 (unless i get really lucky and find a used one...then maybe a few thousand less) so I'm basically screwed after owning the car for one day. This is on a car that checked out perfect, this sort of thing is not even checked for and no tech or person I've talked to has had something like this happen on a turbo.

BUYER BEWARE OF THE GT3 DELETE AND/OR AC LOCATED ABOVE THE STEREO - make sure the harness is up and away from anything metal

At this point I don't even know when I could get the car back, no one stocks wiring harnesses (porsche has to make me one...) because this simply doesn't happen - lucky me.

I'll post some pics later.

 

Now that you mention this....I only know that the radio in my older 99 996 was a stock radio...a CDR220, but I did have to replace it when it went futz on me...and I bought a rebuilt one from Becker in the US and had it installed at a shop....it's possible that the connection wasn't made right...because according to the AAA insurance investigators.... the fire definitely came from behind the radio. I guess this is a warning to folks who buy cars with "upgraded" stereo systems. Some of the guys do it themselves or have a friend who says he knows all about stereo systems install it. This is something that never gets checked on any PPI...but might be worth remembering when buying a previously owned car with a spiffy stereo upgrade. Or spend about $250 and get a nice chromed Halon extinguisher with quick release bracket that fits right under the passenger seat....cheap insurance.

 

It started at the AC harness:




Pulled the wires apart about 2 feet further back on the ac line and still fried:




Fried all the way back where it meets the main harness which shorted out the cluster and other constant 12v circuits (which are unrelated to the switched circuit where it started, it melted through other wires once getting into the main harness area behind the steering column)

 

ugggh what a nightmare. Hope you get sorted and back on the road soon. From your post it looks like no more warranty

 

Well I've finally had the first bit of good news on this deal. After removing things further it looks like there is a seperate harness for the AC and a few other things that attaches in near the fuses - this is an unlisted part and is not referenced anywhere by porsche as a seperate harness. My mechanic is saying it appears the damage is limited to this harness and just popping the fuses for everything else since it has 12v and switched circuits.

So he calls Porsche and asks them about it and lo and behold, despite being unlisted in any parts reference, they do have one! That section is $375 and could be plugged in and require very little additional labor beyond what has been done already. $375 is worth the gamble to me (the additional labor would be done anyway to replace the whole thing) so fingers crossed it works. If so I may escape this nightmare for a couple thousand instead of up to $10k.

Part is being sent from Germany so won't be here until end of next week, I'll update once its in.

*also sent off the cluster to be tested and make sure its not fried, hopefully find something out on that Monday or Tuesday.

 

That is GREAT news....let's hope it's just the AC harness...if it turns out you dodged a $10K bullet, you could always celebrate and buy a new set of wheels or a spiffy exhaust or something.....at least that's the justification my wife would use!! Gee honey, look at all the money I saved.....I can afford to go buy XXX now.

 

I kept saying...be patient and everything will work out...I am glad you got it sorted out with very few dollars...and I hope that you took that email comment back...you can PM me on here, I dont have access to my email but can check 6 speed

 

The new ac harness came in and was installed, after hooking everything back up everything works except the ac unit...

Whenever the climate control is plugged in it pops the fuse (which is better than 15 fuses popping I guess). They are trying to trace it out but haven't found the cause yet. Plugging in my original broken climate control doesn't pop the fuse, and it lights up very dimly - this is exactly the state it was in that prompted me to buy a new one. Plugging the new one in pops the fuse.

The only other weird thing is the original one is part number ending '08' which is suppossed to be for 02+ cars (mine is a 2001), I purchased the correct part number ending '03' for 99-01 cars and thats the one popping the fuse (and they had another they test fitted pops it also). I don't know if possibly that has something to do with it or if the old unit just doesn't pull enough power to pop it. They don't have another '08' part around to test.

So after another week and lots of labor back to square one.

 

You need an owner who is a EE. Unfortunately. Someone who will take the schematic, the wires, a few meters, and dive deeper- understand what the components are doing with each wire (signal, control, power, ground) and trace each one. likely you will find one of:

- wrong sub-harness
- remaining defect in main harness on one line to the AC unit (ie not in the harness you replaced)
- bad ground
- etc

Sorry I have no real ideas without being there and spending a few hours.....


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