Reading can help!
11/11/2025
It is said that many men would rather press a lot of buttons before voluntarily reading an owner's manual. Admittedly, there are many buttons in a car - depending on the equipment. Or let's put it this way: there are a few buttons. Well, a Volkswagen T1 has a fairly manageable number of buttons. On my bus there are about: 1-2-3-4... I suspect hardly more than seven or eight! For decades, I was convinced that one of them was a kind of pull switch for distributing heat from the heater to the interior. Sometime in the autumn a few years ago, I wanted to make it a bit more comfortable for my passengers in the back and pulled this button out completely. My car drove about 500 meters and then the engine stopped. It wasn't until the breakdown mechanic, a young guy, came to my rescue after I had waited about an hour to get going again. He said the fuel tap was closed, which I refused to believe until he shook it under the back of the car and - you guessed it! - the pull button for the "heater" moved! I was firmly convinced that the carburetor had an electric shut-off valve and the dashboard had a fuel gauge, so there was no need for a fuel tap.
Recently, all the window regulators and the sunroof failed on the Jaguar XJ12. Studying the workshop manual, I was sure that the relay for these five electric motors must have failed. So I ordered a new relay, removed the old one and fitted the new one. Nothing happened! Neither the side windows nor the sunroof made any movement. So I consulted the wiring diagram and found a "master switch". Aha, and where should it be? Only a close inspection of the center console revealed that between the five switches for the windows and the sunroof there is another, smaller toggle switch, the master switch! Well, the defect was quickly rectified and my range of spare parts now includes a perfectly functioning used relay.
Sometimes I am amazed at people who, even after decades of ownership, cannot tell me exactly what this or that switch in their cars is supposed to be for. Once again, I know exactly how it feels when you find out at some point - out of necessity or by chance!
