Dipped Headlight Problem on 1989 Audi100

[paul.heneghan@bbc.co.uk (Paul Heneghan)]

Two weeks ago, my dipped beams on my wife's Avant became intermittent.  Last 
week they stopped working completely (although the dim dipped still worked). 
 Looking at the circuit diagram, I decided the fault had to be in the 
combination switch, so I decided to take it all apart and clean it up.

I found out a couple of things along the way.  First of all, the combination 
switch is clamped to the steering column.  The bolt in the clamp is 4mm 
Allen - It didn't say this in Haynes or Bentley, and as it's dark in there, 
I spent some time with different sized Philips screwdrivers getting nowhere.

Once I got the combination switch off, I discovered that the left hand 
section (lights, indicators, main/dipped) could be dismantled (Torx 9 
required - not a standard size, but I happened to have one in my toolkit), 
but it looks as if the right hand side (hazard, wipers) could not - it had 
what appeared to be some kind of blind rivets.

I dismantled the left hand section, spent 10 minutes looking for a spring 
that shot out and hit the wall at the far end of the room (it had bounced 
back and landed almost at my feet), cleaned the contacts, reassembled, 
reinstalled and tested the switch.  The lights didn't come on.  )(*&^%$#"!

I took it all appart again, and this time noticed that the connector on the 
wiring loom looked strange.  One of the little female connectors had 
blackened and had generated enough heat to melt the plastic casing around 
it.  I cleaned it out with a 3mm drill bit, crimped it slightly with a 
pliers and connected everuthing up again.  Success!

I wonder what method VW/Audi would have used if I had brought the car to 
them - would they have replaced the wiring loom - what would it have cost?

Paul
paul.heneghan@bbc.co.uk
1984 Audi 80 quattro
1989 Audi 100 Avant