WARNING - Do NOT put a pen in the Car manual compartment in the glovebox!

[ricksterrr]

Hey everyone,

About a month and a half ago, I found that the climatronic system in my GTI had stopped working all of a sudden (no air at all from any of the vents) and figured that it must have been some sort of electrical gremlin that caused it to fail.

Took it in to get it fixed today and lo and behold, it turned out that a pen had made its way into one of the aircon vents and had apparently jammed up the main blower fans, causing the failure of the entire air con system. Of course this got me confused initially since I don't have any kids and I certainly would not have deliberately stuck a pen into one of the vents (nor would it have fit)

After trying to think as to how a pen could have possibly made it into the aircon unit in the first place, I suddenly remembered that I had left a pen in the compartment in the glovebox that holds the car manual (for convenience reasons, obviously). This pen must have found its way into the venting system after driving around on bumpy roads. I later confirmed this by checking out the glovebox of the courtesy Mk6 Golf TDI that was loaned to me by the dealership... turns out there are significantly sized gaps at the back of the compartment that holds the car manual that could have easily swallowed pens. Obviously I had not noticed these gaps before I put the pen there. Since it is a fault of my own, I will have to pay for the replacement unit... and it's not cheap .

Moral of the story - don't put ANY objects in this compartment besides the car manual! I hope that by documenting my unfortunate experience here due to my own carelessness will prevent others from making the same mistake.

[ConR]

Oh man..that sucks bud! My opinion is that you shouldn't have to pay a thing though. I didn't know there was a clause in VW warranty that says do not leave a pen in your glove box. The glove box is meant to hold items, and it's expected that ALOT of people will keep pens in there (get into an accident, write down info, etc.).

I would complain to VW on that one.

[team_v]

Hey everyone,

About a month and a half ago, I found that the climatronic system in my GTI had stopped working all of a sudden (no air at all from any of the vents) and figured that it must have been some sort of electrical gremlin that caused it to fail.

Took it in to get it fixed today and lo and behold, it turned out that a pen had made its way into one of the aircon vents and had apparently jammed up the main blower fans, causing the failure of the entire air con system. Of course this got me confused initially since I don't have any kids and I certainly would not have deliberately stuck a pen into one of the vents (nor would it have fit)

After trying to think as to how a pen could have possibly made it into the aircon unit in the first place, I suddenly remembered that I had left a pen in the compartment in the glovebox that holds the car manual (for convenience reasons, obviously). This pen must have found its way into the venting system after driving around on bumpy roads. I later confirmed this by checking out the glovebox of the courtesy Mk6 Golf TDI that was loaned to me by the dealership... turns out there are significantly sized gaps at the back of the compartment that holds the car manual that could have easily swallowed pens. Obviously I had not noticed these gaps before I put the pen there. Since it is a fault of my own, I will have to pay for the replacement unit... and it's not cheap .

Moral of the story - don't put ANY objects in this compartment besides the car manual! I hope that by documenting my unfortunate experience here due to my own carelessness will prevent others from making the same mistake.

Jesus, that sounds pretty vicious.
Hopefully it all gets sorted out for you.

Will be checking out my glovebovebox to find said gaps before i put anything in there.

[booya]

A glove box which you can't keep anything resembling a pen in (doesn't matter if its in the area for the book), it should be under warranty. Hope you win this one.

[ricksterrr]

Oh man..that sucks bud! My opinion is that you shouldn't have to pay a thing though. I didn't know there was a clause in VW warranty that says do not leave a pen in your glove box. The glove box is meant to hold items, and it's expected that ALOT of people will keep pens in there (get into an accident, write down info, etc.).

I would complain to VW on that one.

Yup I tried to get them to pull some strings, but to no avail. Apparently I am the first one to have had a pen stuck in the aircon system in a mk 6. Not exactly something I wanted to be a pioneer at but alas...

Actually it would have been completely fine for pens to be in the glovebox itself...but in my case I had chosen to place the pen in the car manual compartment instead.

I just took a photo of the car manual compartment and as you can see, there is a massive hole there that can easily swallow a couple of pens.

imgur: The Simple Image Sharer

[phantomcamel]

Oh man..that sucks bud! My opinion is that you shouldn't have to pay a thing though. I didn't know there was a clause in VW warranty that says do not leave a pen in your glove box. The glove box is meant to hold items, and it's expected that ALOT of people will keep pens in there (get into an accident, write down info, etc.).

I would complain to VW on that one.

warranty covers damage caused due to a manufracturers fault, not damage caused by the driver or their passenger(s). You can't hold the manufracturer liable for foreign objects entering the a/c duct.
You certainly wonder how it could have gotten in there that easy though...

[Guest1306]

Oh man..that sucks bud! My opinion is that you shouldn't have to pay a thing though. I didn't know there was a clause in VW warranty that says do not leave a pen in your glove box. The glove box is meant to hold items, and it's expected that ALOT of people will keep pens in there (get into an accident, write down info, etc.).

I would complain to VW on that one.

Owners Manual, Page 100, Seats & Stowage:

In some vehicle models, the glove compartment contains apertures, for example behind the compartment for the vehicle wallet. Small items could fall through the apertures and become trapped behind the trim. This could cause unusual noises and damage to the vehicle. For this reason you should not store small items in the glove box.

[logger]

Owners Manual, Page 100, Seats & Stowage:
In some vehicle models, the glove compartment contains apertures, for example behind the compartment for the vehicle wallet. Small items could fall through the apertures and become trapped behind the trim. This could cause unusual noises and damage to the vehicle. For this reason you should not store small items in the glove box.

Apart from that statement covering VW RRRRs, it shows that VW are aware of what could be argued as a design fault. Would be better if they placed a warning label on the poorly designed stowage.

[Corey_R]

Hmm. Not sure I'd be really happy with that. Although it does say not to put small things in the glovebox in the manual, I'm sure that most people would consider the glovebox the obviousl place TO put a pen. To me it makes more sense that VW should just cover that hole which is large enough for a pen to go through... but then again, I'm not a car designer

[Syd118TSI]

Sounds like the manual is pretty clear about this, though it's bloody unfortunate for the OP and you'd think that perhaps VW could come to the party a little on this and perhaps only charge for parts.

It's not something that you expect to have to allow for, it seems a perfectly logical place to keep a pen without having meticulously read through the manual before operating the vehicle.

[Maverick]

Re: WARNING - Do NOT put a pen in the Car manual compartment in the glovebox!

Sounds like the manual is pretty clear about this, though it's bloody unfortunate for the OP and you'd think that perhaps VW could come to the party a little on this and perhaps only charge for parts.

It's not something that you expect to have to allow for, it seems a perfectly logical place to keep a pen without having meticulously read through the manual before operating the vehicle.

Actually I find it perfectly reasonable to expect you to have read the manual before operating the vehicle. So many times you see people asking the most basic of questions because they haven't bothered to RTFM and this time it's lead to damage of the car.

Pens can be put in the glovebox but just not in the section which is only for the manual. I don't want to see VW cover the car in warnings because people are too lazy to read the manual.

Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk

[Corey_R]

No No No No No, it says not to put them in the compartment for the manual. It stands to reason that they know there is a risk of damage from objects going in there. However there is obviously a need for the hole, or they would not of gone to the trouble of writing a section into the manual for it. If the manual said, do not put CD's into the CD Player upside down or you may cause damage, would you do it? No.

Yeah - It is fair enough - because it is clear and specifically says that compartment for the manual. It's just unfortunate I guess

[logger]

Re: WARNING - Do NOT put a pen in the Car manual compartment in the glovebox!

Actually I find it perfectly reasonable to expect you to have read the manual before operating the vehicle.

Maverick why don't your comments surprise me? Next thing you'll be saying is we have to pass an exam on the manual as well.
How do you get on when you rent a car? Read the manual from cover to cover before you set off do you ; -)

PS nice choice of phone dude.

Sent from my Nexus one using T@p@t@lk

[Maverick]

Re: WARNING - Do NOT put a pen in the Car manual compartment in the glovebox!

Maverick why don't your comments surprise me? Next thing you'll be saying is we have to pass an exam on the manual as well.

I have advocated that before, make the owners read the manual and pass a test before driving away. It would reduce the posts on here by 60%.

How do you get on when you rent a car? Read the manual from cover to cover before you set off do you ; -)

I normally hire falcons and as their target market is knuckle draggers there isn't much to learn. If it's something like a maxima I'll take a quick read of key areas.

PS nice choice of phone dude.

Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk

[ricksterrr]

Well I am kicking myself for making such a mistake. It's not something that I ever thought about when I shoved that pen there, but a close read of the manual would've prevented me from doing so. Now I'll have to pay for the damage from that one stray pen.

I guess an upside (if there is one) is that the damage was limited to the climatronic unit... and that doesn't affect the driving experience in anyway. The car is still a pleasure to drive, climatronic has not been used since winter hit, it's just a bit of a pain in the arse when the windows fog up and I can't remove the condensation

Hopefully my unfortunate experience will prevent this from happening in anyone else's car