elf89

At the end of last summer, my turn signal flasher stopped working. The light on the dash would come on solid, and nothing would happen outside the car. I replaced it with a cheap ($10) flasher relay from Autozone that had the same spade connectors and markings for resistence and such.

This made it work again, but one side flashed faster than the other, which annoyed me. The Autozone guy was sure it was a wiring problem in my car, but he took it back. When I put the old one back in, it worked great for a year.

So the cheap solution is to take out the flasher relay, clean the contacts, tap it a bit and put it back in. This time though, I stopped at the dealer and bought the official replacement part. It's a VW part so not horribly expensive ($30). And everything works now and flashes at the same rate on both sides.

Oh, and if your turn signals don't reset, try this fix that I learned about here on Rennlist.

Dales944

Thank you Mr. Elf. I've been frustrated by the signal reset issue for a while, but never saw pics. I think I'll attempt it now.

Thanks again,

Dale.

Serge944

Yes, this thread is a godsend. Ive had the same problem recently. Is the flasher relay located in the fuse box under the hood, or where?

Serge944

Wait, its #11 in the diagram, correct?

TonD

Yep, #11. I'm having this exact same problem right now! I actually have the relay here in front of me.

What's weird, the 'Alarm'-flasher (4 blinkers at the same time, emergency button...) does work, but the Turn Signal doesn't.

What I did, open up the relais (dumb?), take a look, sprayed some contact-spray, closed it. Put it back in the car. The Emergency-flashers are still working OK, however, the Turn Signal is still dead. Oh and now it (the relay) makes a weird buzzing noise when trying to use the Turnsignal.

All in all I just made it worse. Swapping the relay for a new one will fix my problems? Not that I can't miss $30, but shops over here won't take it back, so I want to be (quite) sure before buying one.

Thanks for any input!

Cyrus951

If one side is flashing faster than the other on the dash, it means there's an error in the circuit, and one of the lights on that side is not working. When I had the problem, it turned to be a bad contact on the wires leading into the back of the turn signal on the bumper.

Zero10

Bingo, it usually does that when one light is out, or if there is a grounding problem or something.

I am in the process of repairing my turn signal flasher. The variable resistor at the top corner of the board inside the relay is buggered up, it just got too dirty and worn out from vibration. I'm just going to replace it with a resistor, hopefully, problem solved =)
Although, my problem was different. The light inside would stay off, and the ones outside would stay on. I got tired of being my own flasher....

IceShark

The quality control on turnsignal relays seems to be totally crazy especially if components were made in China. I had one actually start on fire once. Fortunately, I had the top of the relay/fuse box off and saw the smoke rolling out. So this is one case where paying more for a quality relay is worth it.

Also make sure your signal bulbs are not over 5 watts each.

Chris_924s

bingo.

One side / corner bad- bad bulbs or bad ground.
Consistent issue both sides- relay.

I had BOTH brakelight bulbs go at once. Only the brighter element and not the driving element.

Took a day to trace, check continuity, etc..turned out to be a bad ground in the rear hatch- it was intermittent and when I hit the brakes, no bulbs lit- the ground connected for a brief moment with too much voltage and blew them both.

that was a frustrating diagnosis to achieve.