Intermittent strange electrical faults

[bitcross]

My 2008 Passat has in the last few weeks developed a few strange electrical faults (once a week for 3 weeks, all on a saturday morning)

Firstly started locking and unlocking the car as you drive along. Second time added to this was the indicators on the wing mirrors flashing differently to the indicators on the rest of the car and when i parked the car and locked it the alarm went off. This morning then had an error "parking brake failure" and "engine fault" and would not start - locked car, alarm went off, unlocked car, started no problem with no errors. Driving alon the locking/unlocking and indicators played up again and the auto hold button would not stay switched on. Short journey - nearly at destination and the parking brake fault light came on along with the ESP light. These went off when I arrived and switched engine off (and have not reappeared) but I then had the issue of the alarm going off when I locked the car.

Any ideas? It is booked for diagnostics at a VW garage but not for about 10 days...price £60/hr...joy :aargh4:

[RichardSEL]

What car? What engine? Is this a daily driver?

Get yourself a VCDS Autoscan and post here? There may be someone nearby, see:
VWAF User Location Map - VCDS - Google Maps (https://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msid=209563024277134815192.0004c505be14b22419db e&msa=0&ll=56.231139,-2.779541&spn=3.493691,10.821533&iwloc=0004c505cfcb6158e0447)

A VAS scan at a main dealer does not take an hour, usual charge is ½hour +VAT And get yourself a printout of it.

Check all carpets for dampness, including boot area and spare wheel carrier.
Check all window rubbers for good seal. Any condensation to inside of windows in the mornings?

What work have you had done on car recently?

Sporadic faults can sometimes be cleared by removing both main battery connections, shorting the leads' clamps together, and leaving for a minute or so. Then tightly re-connect to battery. You should see just two lights on your dash: steering and ESP. Both will go out when you've driven a few yards

Let us know how you get on?

[bitcross]

Thank you - it is a 2.0 diesel TDI, driven by me daily and sometimes my husband. The faults got worse on Monday and managed to get it into the garage on Tuesday. Diagnostics not good - large number of faults which when wittled down has come down to the main electrical unit - I cann't remember what they called it but related to the engine control unit (or something along those lines) for which I was given a rouhg figure of £800 to fix. However the garage have sent the printout to VW for technical advice to check they are not missing anything.

No work done on car recently and couldn't find any dampness - this was the first thing I thought of after some googling! And no condensation, so does not appear to be to do with water ingress.

[RichardSEL]

How many miles? What year? Get youself a written quote and post here?

[bitcross]

2008 (this was in first post) 08 plate, approx 63K miles. Garage apparently taking all the wiring apart on advice of VW to try to find root cause...so have no quote yet. Not sure this is all very helpful but makes me feel better to write it down. Cannot find anything online about recalls/known problems with the car but for the electrics to go so wrong after 5 years seems strange.