I.O.D. Connector.

[NinjaTech]

Ok, guys.. Cars a 92 TSI AWD. I have been beating my self up all morning trying to get this electrical issue figured out. The power door locks and the interior lights dont work. I got out a wiring diagram, unfortunatly it is not complete, it only showed the interior lighting. I have traced the problem back to this thing in the engine bay fuse box called and I.O.D. connector. Bacialy the entire interior lighting system is not getting any power at all. The I.O.D. connector has four pins, I have no clue what pins 1 and 2 are. From what I can tell from the wiring diagram that I have is that pin 4 should have 12 volts on it (and it does), and this 'IOD' thing is suposto jumper that power over to pin three to complete the circuit so power will make it to the rest of the interior lighting. I grabed a short peice of wire and jumperd those two pins, and low and behold the interior lights all started working again. The problem I am having now is that when I shut all of the doors all of the lights stay on and then "door open" light on the dash stays on. I have a feeling whoever owned the car before had one of his door pin switches or something ground out so that the car always thought a door was open, and being lazy didnt want to fix it, so he just pulled this IOD thing off to make the lights go out, but never actualy fixed the problem.

Does this sound like a reasonable conclusion?

Next question, what in the hell is an IOD connector anyway? I have never heard of one before? If all it is is a jumper to make the lights work or not it sounds like a worthless peice of shit. There was some mention of it when dave bought the car, but the guy he was buying it from said it had something to do with when the car was new and being shipped to the dealership or some kinda crap like that, I never even thought anything of it at the time. He said the dealer ship would take it off before the sold a car, but that dosent seem to lickely of a story if taking it off breaks the lights. If nothing else could one of you guys run out and check to see if your cars have this or not, so i at least know if its 'suposto' be there of it there is something else wrong? Its a little connector thats sitting about a 45 degree angle to all of the other fuzes and relays twards the fender side of the fusebox.

Last question, in the wiring diagram there looks to be a some sort of little 'box/relay' lookin thing that looks to be a dimmer module so the lights will slowly dim after the door has been closed. Does anyone know where this is located at in the car? There are plenty of little relays all over this car, but only a few have any kind of labeling on them as to what the hell they do.

Thanks in advance,
Pat

 

[92redman]

The IOD(ignition-off draw) is just what is says. Electrical draw when the ignition is off. This keeps things like power modules and clocks juiced up. It's probably not logical to think that a door switch was causing excessive draw because they usually get corroded/rusted and don't turn the lights on at all.

It is reasonable to assume that it was intentionally disconnected because the electrical system had a high draw with ignition off, causing the battery to drain and possibly go dead.

Next step is to get out the DVOM and preferably a light bulb(use this first to make sure you won't fry your meter or fuse), check the IOD and if it is not excessive, hook it up. If it does have excessive draw(more than about 10ma or so) then start going after systems that could cause the draw.

As for the other stuff, I must be equipped with ADD becuase I couldn't stand reading that whole thing. Sorry.