Hi

Welcome to the forum.

I also have a 2004, but a tdi.

I had my esp light come on and stay on together with the abs light and the (!) light flashing.

turned out i had water ingress in to the fuse box in the engine bay - the lid wasn't on it correctly and water got in to pin 15 on the board which happened to be the bit that dealt with the lights at fault.

This was when we suffered very heavy rainfall earlier this year though.

The newer cars hav a different design fuse box and mine is the older type - so the vw assistance man told me.

hope this helps.

BEn