Repair or replacement of clicking turn signal switch and hazard switch relay

[chittychittybangbang]

Ah, the joys of owning a Volkswagen.

Last week the horn on the B5.5 Passat TDI started beeping on left hand turns. Some compressed air behind the airbag fixed that. This week the turn signal relay started clicking by itself. I had a pretty good idea that it was the switch but I had a spare hazard switch which is also the turn signal relay so I replaced that first. I took a video showing the problem.

Then I took the turn signal apart to clean it, problem fixed. You can sometimes get away with shooting some no residue electrical contact cleaner in the base of the turn signal stalk but I felt like taking it apart.

The full writeup is below: http://www.myturbodiesel.com/1000q/b...-repair-vw.htm and has been added to the mk4 FAQ indexes. I'm sure the mk5 switch may do something similar but it seems to happen on mk4 switches a lot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNlH-6Kzcuo

[tmeyer41002]

I tried your idea of contact cleaner. Picked it up at Walmart for a couple dollars. Pulled the lever toward steering wheel and put the straw behind the stick. While moving the turn signal up and down I spayed in the cleaner. After about 5 seconds, I was done. That annoying clicking has been gone for 5 days. I was really not looking forward to replacing the signal switch on the column.

[Calidris96]

What he said... the spray cleaner worked like a champ!

[DieselB59]

I had both my old 99 Jetta TDI and my 04 Passat TDI have the same annoying clicking from the hazard switch. Both times, a new switch got rid of it. After looking at my 99's switch and smelling the burning plastic smell, I didn't even think of taking any chances with the new car and the new additions to the family riding in it. As far as the turn signal multifunction switch goes, they are a high failure rate item on pretty much all brands and models of vehicles out there.