Clicking from behind glovebox

[gfewster]

Hi everyone,

Great forum - hope someone is able to offer some help here as I'm confused!

Have a 99 Passat TDi (AFN engine code). Done a lot of miles, and now a rhythmic clicking has started - seemingly from behind the glovebox. It's quite loud (can hear over engine, radio etc) and sounds almost electrical in nature - like an arching sound, or perhaps a solenoid clicking in and out.

Is present constantly whenever engine is running, turning off the Climatronic makes no difference. Have prised away the side panel on the end of the dash but can't see anything obviously wrong.

Any ideas?

[Hex69]

Hi everyone,

Great forum - hope someone is able to offer some help here as I'm confused!

Have a 99 Passat TDi (AFN engine code). Done a lot of miles, and now a rhythmic clicking has started - seemingly from behind the glovebox. It's quite loud (can hear over engine, radio etc) and sounds almost electrical in nature - like an arching sound, or perhaps a solenoid clicking in and out.

Is present constantly whenever engine is running, turning off the Climatronic makes no difference. Have prised away the side panel on the end of the dash but can't see anything obviously wrong.

Any ideas?

I think you were nearly there with the Climatronic. Does the clicking stop when you press the recirculation button?

[gfewster]

We'll see tonight when I get home. Have been searching the forum for similar....

Going to fiddle with recirculation tonight, then will take pollen filter off and lubricate recirculation flap mechanism. If doesn't help, then looks like I'm cutting wires somewhere because there's no way I'm taking the dash off or paying someone a day's labour to do it.

Why does changing anything on these cars require you to dismantle the whole vehicle?

Thanks for the help...

[PeoplesMan]

Welcome to the forum.


Had the same issue and got fault code DTC 01274 ( RE_CIRCULATILY ACTUATOR FAULTY )


Had to get the dash removed and the part which costs about 120 euro replaced.

Labour was massive. It's an entire dash out job.

Try get a fault code test run. You can also run a fault code test through the Climatronic I think.

Your press Recirc and ECON at the same time. Use hot and cold to navigate.

444 66 reflects no faults but this is from memory and my memory isnt very good.

[gfewster]

Ok, when my girlfriend brought the car home I did a quick check and yes - it stops when the recirculator is turned on. So my guess is that the recirculation flap is jammed closed, and when you turn the recirculator off it tries to open the jammed flap and the motor slips the gear teeth because it won't move?

Quick cure is to leave the recirculator on. When my hayfever goes away and I get my eyesight back, I will poke around beneath the pollen filter to see if it is jammed. If it isn't and the gear is shot, then I suppose it might get quite expensive and given it's a 99 car with 180,000 on the clock I may have to do some thinking...

Thanks very much for the help with the diagnosis chaps, much appreciated!