Car tried to start itself and kept cranking without ignition key / key was home in a drawer

[Crasher]

And in the future with self driving cars when water gets into a controller whilst you are doing 70 reading the paper......

[Maxlibertas]

.... and with electric cars saga electricity will be a commodity.

[Crasher]

I think the whole future concept of self driving electric cars is going to be one almighty cockup that will make the dirty diesel thing look like the proverbial storm in a tea cup! I look at it this way, we can NOW have self flying planes and self driving trains on rails but we don't ... why? Their maintenance regimes are highly regulated and the components made to extraordinarily high stands, self driving cars will be maintained like any old car today and parts made to a price, or bodged, imagine a "remanufactured" pedestrian detection ECU going on the blink and flattening a child, who gets the blame? Its crackers!

[Maxlibertas]

Components are manufactured and operational procedures are maintained to higher standards in aviation industry but aviation Industry is biggest contributor to pollution. An average aircraft consumes 1 tonne of fuel on ground taxiing from gate to runway at ISL aérodrome. My son is a pilot at major airline, the other month they failed to start both engines on a 1 year old Boeing, aircraft declared on ground. Culprit was an insulation valve, regulated air pressure on start up.

As for the combustion engines go, indivual mini turbo units per cylinder yet to be seen. Jaguar experimented with micro-turbine engines, it didn't pick up as more advanced technologies needed to manufacture blades and heat exchangers, these engines introduced extra challenge and advantages as they idle 80k rpms, difficult to control yet good power source for hybrids. US Abraham tanks are powered by a helicopter engine.

Electronics and operating environment of a car don't go well. In my days we wouldn't release a new server to production until it was fully climatised to data centre. Thee have been many advancements due to computer technology, but computer technology neeeds advancements, a breakthrough, it is still based on fetch-execute cycle introduced by Von-Neumann architecture 1945.

[Crasher]

I read it was international shipping using bunker fuel which had the highest pollution per km travelled? An interesting point was brought up by one of my colleagues barking on about hydrogen fuel cells only producing water vapour; this is THE worst greenhouse gas by far. All these young trendy types who bang on about their future environment don't realise that the laughing gas they pop at the weekend is the fourth most damaging greenhouse gas only coming after methane which is another thing these shouty activists produce a lot of! The other day I changed a fuel pump controller on a CC petrol that is a taxi, under the back seat I found discarded laughing gas cylinders. When you go into Nottingham city on a Sunday Morning, the little shiny cylinders are all over the place. Escaped N2O is 298 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, over the 100 years it takes to break down.

[Maxlibertas]

Picked up the car today. Floor trims and insulation dried, checked and made sure all 4 sunroof drain pipes are working, The unplugged drain wipe was put in place and fortified with sealant. No fault codes on ODIS. They struggled a bit reinstalling the A pillar trim. Drove home about 70km, everything seems in working order. Mechanic said because water got into electrics control unit is a concern, let's hope for the best.

Car stayed at workshop for 5 days. Cost £75, minimum monthly wage is about £280.

Whole thing is still a huge puzzle.

[Amphitryon]

Assuming the BCM is microprocessor based, which presumably it must be if it sits on the CAN bus, all bets are off as to what it will do when the circuit board is swimming in water. Its behaviour could be completely unpredictable, hence why a windscreen wiper stalk can engage the starter.

The issue is that, while water does not conduct well enough to get a decent amount of current through it at 12V or less, the amount of current needed by microprocessor circuits is tiny and signals are often multiplexed, meaning the signal on a circuit board track can mean something different depending on when it happens.

To me, it is poor design for a module with control over safety critical things to depend on the cabin remaining waterproof and not also be waterproof in its own right.

Anyway, glad to hear is is now sorted.

Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

[Maxlibertas]

Yes I would agree, faulty central electrics unit. I had to change one on a Passat a few weeks ago just because the washer motor pump was drawing excessive current and it burnt out the solid state relay, £650 to repair your washers!

What has happened to you is VERY worrying, that could easily cause car, property damage, injury or even a fire if it were left in gear, I have never heard of it before and I hope for VW’s sake it is a one off or that could turn into an expensive safety recall.

I notified vw international customer care for the incidents. Received phone call from local distributor, case will be investigated and I will be given feedback. Today I was invited with the car to my usual authorised dealer for inspection/diagnostic. However, i would bear the cost for inspection. Upon further correspondence with VW international, dealer rang me up and informed diagnostic/inspection will be free of charge.
Providing it is not a wet day, will visit Monday. Assume ODIS scan and inspection of water leak.