We had the outside door handle on my daughter’s 1999 VW Passat stop working. The inside handle worked fine, but the outside handle wouldn’t open the door. The first time this happened, I took the entire door apart. The problem is a small plastic connector between the outside handle and the door latch mechanism. It turns out it can easily be reached by removing the lock cylinder.
First pull back the weather stripping to loosen the Torx bolt that holds the lock mechanism in place.
Loosen it enough to pull the lock mechanism out (this is a rear door with a blank lock).
The problem is that this plastic barrel has snapped out of the handle mechanism. I’ve tried just putting it back, but this only solves the problem for a few weeks, so I’ve glued the two pieces with epoxy.
Here is what it looks like after it has been glued.
1999 VW Passat Heater Control Dashboard Light Replacement
There is a single grain of wheat bulb that lights up the heater control section of the dash. It’s easy to replace. All you have to do is pull the center knob off and there it is! Since this was my first time, I took off all three knobs and the cover behind, but it really isn’t necessary.
It’s on my list to buy some pliers for pulling out tiny bulbs like this. Since I don’t have them, I used a piece of heat-shrink over the bulb and grabbed it with needle-nose pliers to pull it out.
I put the new bulb in the same way.
Updated: January 2017 Contact: GerdHoeren at Gmail dot com