Could the ignition switch jam and cause overheating?

[Jonas_R]

Ok,

So took the car out of the garage today.

Started out really well , when I'm driving towards my local garage to do a oil change it starts to smoke from around the ignition switch. At the same time my voltmeter starts to drop down to around 12V. Also the battery symbol starts to blink.

I pulled over when it was possible and swhitched the car off and pulled the cable for the battery just to be sure. But when I turned off the car it stopped smoking almost right away.

I then took the steering rack shelve off and looked at the wires and there was not to see.

I then tried to start the car and let it idle to see if something would get hot, but nothing happend. Voltage was back up to close to 14V and no smoking.

I then took the car for a longer drive and still no voltage dropping or smoke.

Now could this be caused of a ignition switch that was somehow hanging or something similar? I mean everything is still working on the car so nothing seems to have short circuited.

Anyhow will have another look tomorrow at the wires etc. just to be sure.

[Acidburn]

It could be the ignition switch but sounds like a loose live wire somewhere earthing out, check for cables that have the covering burnt off. Just be carefull if you use the car till you've found out, i've been in a car before that burnt to the ground due to the previous owners bad wiring (my mate only owned the car 2 days and i'd drove it home one of them)

[Jonas_R]

Yeah I will have to look over the wires again tomorrow.

[pasbogdan]

Get the cables out of your batery over the night(what i guess you already had).Strip down the ignition switch to see if anything is burned.Do you have your stereo off the car?A golf almost get in flames because stereo was down and the wires to it were let to fall inside the dash.

[twenty valve]

does it have a cheapy DIY alarm system fitted?

Some of the wiring jobs I've seen on after market alarm systems is terrible... it could be earthing out through a spliced joint that hasn't been re-insulated properly, or it could be a faulty alarm control box.

[newsh]

Jonas, I'd say the answer to your question is yes, the switch could be broken inside and occasionally shorting out, I've seen a few of these swiches with problems.

[madpugger]

My B3 did this a couple of times, and I never managed to trace it. Last time I tried to start it the switch failed, IIRC is cranked but would not stop cranking... So I'd say yeah, it could be the ign switch...

[Jonas_R]

Well I have looked through all wires etc and I have tried to see if anythings was burned. But I cant find anything.

The only thing is that the pins connectors on the ignition switch seems to be a little brown. Now this could be rust or perhaps it could be from overheating.

Anyhow I have been testing in idle and a little driving around but know luck repeating the error.

So I blame the ignition switch and I have ordered a new just to be sure.

[s2_wot]

When my ignition switch failed on the S6 the springback after starting the car wasn't there any more. This would leave the starter trying to turn over. Even when the key was manually rotated back anticlockwise after starting it would stay in a strange place.

When you're starting the car there is a load reduction relay that kicks in to kill power to lights, radio, wipers and such items.

That relay could be switching repeatedly if the ignition switch is dodgy. I had a thread with some pictures at the time, it might be worth a look through.

HTH

[martinws]

This happened once on my b3. It never happened again and I didn't even look into it much.