As I said earlier that same fuse/relay panel part was used on various
VWs. In USA/CA models it was used at least as early as 1983, in
Quantums. If weaknesses in the part were exposed over the production
years I'm sure VW would want to correct them as well as accommodate new
needs. The newer part has a different part number but retains the old
number on it as well to indicate backwards compatibility.

I recently gave away my newer version thus I can't open it up to check
anything anymore. Mistake I guess.

Given that aftermarket companies make replacements for the panel it
seems likely that failures are common enough to justify it.

There is a common failure of it in Vanagons by the way. The pin that
feeds key-on power back to the ignition coil cooks and causes all kinds
of problems that shops sometimes chase and never fix. It acts like
Vanagon Syndrome a lot of times. In the other vehicles the coil is fed
from a larger adjacent pin so IMHO VW made a mistake in the Vanagon
harness when they used the smaller pin instead.

D15 small pin
D23 large pin

Mark

Alistair Bell wrote:
> So are you saying the E3 supply point has possibly been upgraded on late
> model vanagons? If E3 was not used in any Vanagon application, then why
> would they upgrade that trace?
>
> alistair
>
>
>
>
> On 9-May-11, at 7:23 AM, mark drillock wrote:
>
>> They may very well have. They fitted a new version of the fuse/relay
>> panel in the last years of Vanagon production. It is plug compatible
>> with the older version but I have not tried to determine any internal
>> differences.
>>
>> Mark
>>
>>
>> Alistair Bell wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> If VW later increased wire sizes for certain points coming off the
>>> panel, did they also increase the brass size on the inside of panel at
>>> those points? I don't know, do you?
>>>
>>>
>
>