At 04:04 PM 5/14/2015, The Bus Depot wrote:
>Many of these OE suppliers are well regarded under their own names (i.e.
>Sachs, Bosch, Continental, etc.) and have their own brand reputation to
>protect. Therefore they do not sell B-stock or reduced-spec product under
>their own names, with or without a VW logo.

Exactly.  It's in their own best interest to sell a good
product.  That said, a) the entire aftermarket parts business is
based on figuring out how to do more with less; and b) the present
utterly insane laws about the duties of publicly-traded companies to
maximize short-term investor profit fly directly in the face of
maintaining brand quality.

> > Regardless of the source and quality of the ignition switch, IMHO, the
>starter and
> > headlight currents should not go thru it.  It is important to upgrade by
>installing relays.
>
>We sell an inexpensive and easy to install relay kit for redirecting the
>starter current directly from the battery, using the ignition switch only as
>a trigger (which is what VW should have done in the first place):

I have to disagree (somewhat) here.  The starter solenoid only draws
a couple of amps.  If VW can't build a switch to handle a two-amp
load, even a two-amp inductive load, they really should close up shop
and go home.

The headlights draw ten amps on high beam, if you use 65/55 lamps in
a two-light setup.  The 2.1l  add another 8+ which is pushing it a
bit.  Relays certainly make sense here, both because they offer the
potential to reduce voltage drop to the lights and because they
offload the heavy switching to a standard cheap part that isn't
specific to one particular thing.

Depending on the cost of copper it might make sense for them to use a
skinnier wire to drive a 200 mA relay that drives the two-amp
relay/engagement mechanism to drive the two hundred amp
starter.   But saying they "should" have done that I think is beyond
reasonable.

Yrs,
d