1998 VW Passat 1.8T 60th anniversary

[Scotland]

Could some one help me, my passat has sunroof problems where it open and closes intermitently on its own, usually worse when it is a hot day. Also the rear window demister stays on when the ignition is turned off.

[Sleepy]

Hi mate seems like this is an extremely common issue with B5-B5.5 Passats found this link for you hope it helps

http://www.passatworld.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=238398

[richdave]

Being an electronic technician, I'd not recommend using an eraser on the back plate of the rotary switch... the black circular lines appear to be screenprinted resistive materials and the metal contacts move across them to vary the resistance and thus tell the controller how far to open the sunroof... the eraser may well remove too much resistive material and cause other problems...

The darker lines in the black tracks are wear marks and they in conjunction with dirty contacts cause intermittant resistance values and erratic control.

Tensioning the wipers so the press harder onto the black resistive material will ensure that it wears thru quicker... and more problems will arise.

I have repaired rheostats similar to this by tweaking the wiper contacts sideways 0.5 - 1mm so they contact a new part of the black resistive material rather than pressing harder on the old area... Hope that makes sense...

looking at the photo though, the inner ones which are singles should be easily done with needle nosed pliers and some gentle tweaking... the others present a challenge... without seeing it up close and personal I dont know exactly how to tweak these... But the outcome you want is for the contacts to touch the balck resistive strip at a new point so they travel in a slightly wider or narrower arc, and with the same level of tension

If it were me, I'd clean the contacts as described and give the back plate a gentle wipe with a lint free cloth/tissue... and if ya want to really go to town use some rheolube when you reassemble the unit to lubricate the wiper contacts...

my 2.2 cents Inc GST

[Scotland]

thanks for your input guys and the pictures are great. I will give this a shot and get back to you.

thanks again

[Sleepy]

Good luck mate.....I always wish i had a sunroof till i started looking at all the poblems the Passat seems to have with them