Cadiburns

I was cleaning out my car tonight and I had just finished the whole passenger side of the car, so I moved onto the driver's side. I opened the driver's side front door to access the floor to vacuum first and I pull the tab down under the steering wheel to move it up and in so I could access the foot well better.

All of the sudden, I heard sparking and start to see some smoke coming from under the bottom of the guages. Then I look down and it's quickly filling up the foot well with thick smoke. Smelled like an electical fire, no plastic melting smells.

Not really sure what happened, so I disconnected the battery and started to check some fuses and none were blown.

I connected the battery again and turned the key. Radio comes on and things seem normal.....at first. Opened the garage door and turned on the car. After I started the car, this is what I noticed. No lights come on except for the guages. No turn signals, no headlights, no radio lights, no tail lights. The gas guage shot up to almost a full tank, even though I know that I only have half a tank. The thermometer read 11 degrees F outside.

Did one of the relays go out? This isn't an ECM is it? I don't have a lot of circuit knowledge so I don't know where to go from here. Hopefully this isn't a huge fix...

Ragdoll

Just gonna have to take it apart some and see what's burnt up.

AudiS4guy - NorCal

Your KO4's are blown! Sell them to me =P

951porsche

Ugh, good luck as electrical gremlins will be your enemy now..

Mat Indukts Lambos

have you had any gauge work or turbo timer install? Sounds like the wiring in the steering column got bound up when you moved the mechanism there, and grounded out on something.

Gotta fix the problem first, then repair what it damaged.

s4nit loves BOX

I go to leave work one day put the key in turn the ign on and all of this smoke starts coming out of the steering collum. I was like wtf. I just let it smoke. Then I see my radio did not work anymore along with my door chime. MY ign switch burnt out. This is a common problem on the MK3 gti's.

Cadiburns

but I did get to see a little bit through the fuse box. It looks like the insulated bundle of wires coming from the steering wheel got fried up a little bit. The only thing I did was a boost gauge install 2 years ago, hasn't been touched since. I'm going to try and get the tools I need and take off the kick panel to see if I can get a better view of the problem area. HEADACHES as of late.