Help, wiring gurus needed

[J3]

Hello,

 

Calling all wiring techs, I have a question about a wiring problem that was conducted to my car at the garage the yesterday. Without going into details about why or pointing fingers, I am wondering if what they did was theoretically correct or wrong. 

 

My 95 S6 went into a garage to get inspected and upon finishing the state inspection; they noticed the license plate lights were out. They checked the fuses and found that the fuses kept blowing upon replacement of the fuse. The mechanic called me and told me that he could fix the license plate lamps by wiring the license plate lamps to the left tail light, which would bypass the shorted wire and turn on the license plate lights when the tail lights were turned on. 

 

So they tee’d off a power wire from the left tail light and connected it to the license plate light. After putting the positive wire back on the battery and starting the car to check the lights, the dash begins to smoke. They immediately rip the positive cable off the battery and wait for me to arrive. Of course I wasn’t there to witness the smoke fest, so the details about when and how the smoke arrived is information coming from garage.

 

After this point nothing happens to the car in that garage and I flatbed the car to my house. The next day I tear the instrument cluster out of the car and notice three wires severely burned behind the IC. Those three wires had enough damage to damage the instrument cluster that was directly above those wires. One of the three wires was connected to the engine check light and 2 wires were connected to the oil temp gauge. I then check out the license plate lamp area and we notice that they connected the new wire from the left tail light, but they never disconnected the older “shorted” wire. So the license plate light had the new wire source and the older one connected to it. 

 

So, my question is, if they did not disconnect the older shorted wire from the license plate lamp, would it have caused the short to blow up the IC? It seems that by keeping the shorted wire in the circuit that it made power go directly through the license plate lamp and directly to the older short.

 

They are saying that I am to blame because I hooked up my Valentine 1 radar detector and dash display that day before and that shorted the car. The V1 dash display was already installed in the car when i bought it but it didn’t have the power hooked up to it. The V1 and V1 dash display still work, when hooked up even after the damage. All I know is that the car drove fine with the V1 hooked up for a day before I brought it there. 

 

If I can prove that they made a mistake on the wiring than their insurance will cover it. But if I can’t prove to them that this wiring mistake by them was wrong, than I guess it goes into a big legal battle. Anyways this will be a big mess for some time to come.

 

I have detailed photos of the wires and IC that I can email to anybody directly if this will help describe the wires better. 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

Jason