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2006 Jetta No power in driver side door

76K views 19 replies 12 participants last post by  fcadams 
#1 ·
2006 Jetta I had no power in my driver side door. Found a wire cut in half in the harness (big problem with 2006 Jetta's because they designed the wires to short inside the boot to the body connector. New harness is longer ). Replaced the harness - should have fixed all the power problems but all it fixed was the directional signal on the mirror and the power lock on the door but nothing else works...not even the locking door for the gas tank. Cannot get gas into the car. Car is on empty. Fuses looked good but I have no power in the brown wire, inside the boot, coming from the body connector. I'm thinking that the brown wire supplies the power to the windows and the gas door. The red/yellow wire (below the brown wire) has power from the body connector. Not sure what to check next? :(
 
#4 ·
Yes, the harness cost me $191, too. You have to take the inside panel off and the outside skin off, too. Take you time - the first time I did it, it did not work. I ended up disconnecting and connecting all the connectors and then it worked. I have a Jetta service manual that helped me a lot.
 
#5 ·
I've had weird symptoms with the driver door on my 2006 Jetta for a couple of months; driver's power window express up wasn't working all the time, and it would sometimes seem like it didn't know the driver's door was closed. This morning the door ajar light stayed on after closing the door, and no remote locking, no power in door at all. My dealer couldn't see the car until Tuesday, so I turned to Google.

Thanks to earlier posts on this forum I opened the rubber boot and found two broken wires, including the main brown wire. For now I bought some butt connectors (16-14 AWG ("big") and 22-18 AWG (small)). Using small scissors I very carefully trimmed a bit of insulation off each end of the broken brown wire and set them in each end of a big connector, crimped it and most power functions were good! I then used a small connector to repair the small broken wire and my auto-express up works.

The butt connector plastic containers were even the perfect size to wedge in the door area to keep the top/bottom of the boot pressed against the door edge to leave room to work.

I doubt this will last long since the extra mass of the connectors is likely making the open/close harder on the remaining wires. On the other hand they are right on the bend and perhaps it will help shield the other wires from the boot.

It looks easy to disconnect the harness on the body side, but is it possible to disconnect it on the door side and replace the harness without taking outer or inner door panels off?
 
#6 ·
No you're going to have to take the inner door panel off to replace the harness. The harness is not just the wires that goes through the boot, the harness goes all the way into the door and connects all the switches on the door. Thats why the part costs $171! 191 if they are trying to rip you off, but retail price is $171.
 
#8 ·
Yes, you have to take off the outside panel because there are a couple of connectors on the outside of the door, too. One of them is for the side impact air bag - so if you impact bag console light stays on after you replace it...you know it was not connected correctly. That's the one I had to do twice - it's part of the door speaker system. Keep in mind, a lot of guys were able to fix the problem by splicing wires on the wires that broke at the rubber boot. The rubber boot is attached to the body and is visible when you open the door. You can disconnect the rubber boot by squeezing the top tab of the boot and pulling it down - there's a tab on the boot that attaches to the body. I replaced the part because it's my kid's car and he travels a couple of hundred miles to attend college. I didn't want him to stuck on the highway because in my case, besides the power window not working, the gas cap release lid did not work, either. BTW, there's a manual lever that disengages the gas lid - it's located above the wheel well, that you could pull to open it. You will need to take the cardboard side panel off to get to it - that includes taking out the spare tire and removing the rear back panel to allow the cardboard side panel to remove easily without breaking it. It's pretty easy to do. The part number is 1K5-971-120-H. The dealer should have it in stock because according to my VW parts guy - they are replacing about 3 - 5 of these a month! Good luck...
 
#9 ·
Hi mbeurekjian, jetta2006 has updated you pretty well. (Thanks for the remote gas lid fallback).

I had my dealer replace the harness yesterday. It was $212 (CDN) for the part and $168 labour to replace it. I should have complained and tried to get the part at cost as I have done in the past. I love the car but VWs need more repairs than many and they cost more than others too.

My airbag light came on a couple of months before these other problems. They claim from the diagnostics that the driver side bag has "failed" but I wonder if it could be reset now if it was due to a flakey connection in the harness...
 
#10 ·
Thank you guys for the replys...Last weekend I actually went ahead and attempted the replacement of the harness. My local VW dealership (Northshore VW had a total loss fire in May) so I was going to Lexington MA on last friday for a consulting gig so I called up Minuteman VW (bedford MA) and they had 1 in stock - awesome!. Picked it up and took my time with the breakdown, door skin removal was a breeze, the only thing at first which I assumed the screw was supposed to come out was the door handle however after spinning it for 7-8 turns i saw it was loose so just kind of wiggle the lock chamber out. I tried the splicing route originally however to tight even if I was to solder the link looks like it would have broke again...
A couple of bullet points for the next person that attempts this...
  • When getting the replacement part make sure you give them your VIN when ordering the part as there are different variants of it e.g. more speakers etc. $175
  • I disconnected the battery terminal, not sure if this was required but did this as a safety measure.
  • The screw that holds the lock cylinder and handle, for removal simply turn a few turns until the cylinder feels like its loose. The screw actually doesn't come out.
  • Take pictures of each step and the detail of the routing of the wire harness.
  • If your not sure how the harness connectors disconnect into the female/male connectors look at your replacement harness
  • When removing the interior door panel slowly but forcefully pull it off starting in the bottom corner. Be careful not to pull it away as there are harness connectors for speaker etc.
  • After reconnecting the battery and starting the car the air bag light and ESP light would not go off. I drove the car 300' forward no change, I had read some where also go in reverse. So I put it in reverse for 300' and both lights went off!
  • Take your time and enjoy this project took me about 2 hours
Thanks for your help and good luck..
 
#11 ·
A couple of bullet points for the next person that attempts this...
Thank you verry mutch. Last month it cost me 400$ to repair the cable of lock of the back passenger door. Yesturday, it was my front door that have no more power and i just find that im not the only one with that problem. I dont want to spend another 4-500$ on another door... i will follow your step and try to fix it my self. Thank you again. — Jetta 2.0T 2006
 
#12 ·
My driver side window wasn't working. The red and yellow wire was broken inside the rubber boot, between the front of the door and the car frame. (I removed the door panel but found out that wasn't necessary or even helpful)

I repaired it by crimping a small jumper wire (approximately 2 inches) between the broken pieces (using two butt connectors). It seemed like just crimping it back together without adding extra wire in would only solve the problem until it broke again cause it's still too short, although it might work fine. Who knows.

IMO the harness is a complete waste of money, especially since the only problem area is inside the boot.

This repair took me a couple hours because I had to go get the crimp tool and wire and connectors and because I took off the door panel unnecessarily. If I had to do it again it would probably take less than 30 minutes.
 
#13 ·
I had this same problem and repaired the wires. However, I'm having trouble getting the wiring plug reattached to it's slot. Is anyone able to give me some advise on how to get it back in place? Does the orange locking bar need to be in a certain position? It seems that the top half of the plug will go in but the bottom half will not; acts like it's hanging up on something. I don't want to force it and bend pins. I'm very frustrated.
 
#14 ·
My wife's 2000 Jetta is having a similar problem. It seems like the driver side control panel isn't getting any power. The windows won't go up/down (currently stuck down which sucks), the switch to lock the door won't work, and the red light near the door is off even when the door is manually locked. The gas door works so I'm guessing the infamous brown wire is still intact. Any ideas on where to look first? Thanks in advance.
 
#15 ·
My wife's 2000 Jetta is having a similar problem. It seems like the driver side control panel isn't getting any power. The windows won't go up/down (currently stuck down which sucks), the switch to lock the door won't work, and the red light near the door is off even when the door is manually locked. The gas door works so I'm guessing the infamous brown wire is still intact. Any ideas on where to look first? Thanks in advance.
Actually, from what I remember with my problem, the gas tank lid may have been working even though the brown wire was broken. (maybe it has its own pair of leads).

What you might want to try short term is with the engine running, open the door, have someone push the window up button, and then "massage" the boot between the frame and door. You may temporarily reconnect some wires which will at least get the window back up. Then follow some earlier suggestions to disconnect the boot from the frame and take a look at the wires within (temporarily reconnect the brown to get the window up if the "massage" didn't work), and possiblly fix a few of the broken connections or at least know the harness needs replacing.
 
#16 ·
I've got a similar problem on my 97 GLS.

About 10 months ago I did the alarm bypass on my 97 GLS that has been explained through various posts. I disconnected both plugs from the alarm and spliced the two large red wires on the 6-prong plug. Everything worked fine for a while. Then the problems started. Every so often after starting the car, the doors would lock and the power windows would stop working. The center console button for the locks wouldn't work either. This now happens every time and its a bit of a pain in the arse. Now, when I turn the car off, I have to manually unlock the door to get out. *Note* I am still able to lock and unlock the doors from the outside. I'm really looking for some help on this. I don't know if this is fuse related or what, but I need some first-steps here to diagnose this. One suggestion was that it could be the key-lock switch or the wiring in the door jam. The wiring looks fine, and I'm kind of a noob, so I'm not sure what or where the key-lock switch is.

I brought it to the shop and they fixed a bad wire, but it wasn't related.
 
#17 ·
Re: 2006 Jetta No power in driver side door - class action suit for Canadians

I received the attached letter which provides some relief for Canadian 2006 Jetta owners if they had this repaired at their own cost. Or if you want to have the repair made now, you can claim under an extended warranty up to 165k km or 8.5 years after the in-service date, for a $60 fee.

Attached are the details, but the class action part needs to be actioned by March 29, 2013.
 

Attachments

#20 ·
Re: 2006 Jetta No power in driver side door - class action suit for Canadians

I have 2006 TDI and no power to any controls on drivers door. This post helped me find the broken wires and splice in piece of heavy duty extension cord. I made sure the splices were taped up and not in the area where the bend would be. I have tested it out and it seems to hold up good. Sorry I didn't take a photo.
 
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