Crazy Electricals '5 Passat

Macone

New member
Joined
Jan 2, 2018
Location
Canada
TDI
Passat
This one has me stumped.
this is second winter (Canada, and very vortexed!) for this car with me, and I think it did this last year a bit, didn't do it in the heat of summer.
Is my winter car, getting use mostly November to April.
Car starts well(in unheated garage), and I leave it to warm up for 10 mins.
All is well.
However, if I need to get going sooner, or stop for more that 5 minutes at the shops, then the weirdness begins. Will provide as detailed the order of events.
Car starts up easily, but blower fan will not work. There will be a light on the dash, handbrake on I think it is, and the wipers and turn signals will not work as well. If I get moving, it will then beep, and notice reads
"handbrake on". When I continue driving, the beeping continues, and after anywhere from a mile to 5 miles or longer, the warning light goes off, wipers/ turns can work, and then a bit later, blower fan comes on. I tried turning the blower fan switch off a few times, and mostly the light went off, with blower working a minute later. Wiggled the ignition key several occasions, and tho a tad loose, never changed anything.
Never, once sorted and driving, has any of the stuff gone off....once all is running, it stays running.... till the next time I stop.
I'm thinking, with the more recent discovery of turning the fan off and having the brake light warning go off, accessories on, that maybe a relay, possibly the famed 460? ( I had an '02 golf that had a fault with the same relay, but can't recall the details of it, just that when asking around, it seemed the 460 relay was a common issue.)
The way it happens one would think that the warmth of the car/engine is a definite detail of cause, but it's been so cold, -25c for weeks, the car never gets much heat to it, nor does the engine temp gauge move much, till I get rolling a few miles. Almost seems like it's an actual thermostat switch in there.
I'm not good with a multimeter should folks point to hunting down a voltage issue, but fully capable of swapping out relays should you guys think that this is a very likely cause.
Can anyone wade in? Thanx!
 
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