98 Jetta bad ground? in door harness

Dealership repaired this under warranty once. Not under warranty now. They said bad ground.

Symptoms: anything connected in door (ie switches, even the speaker) kills startup and activates alarm. the only way to get the car going is disconnect everything in the driver's side door. using key to unlock alarm from outside car will not open driver's side window(dealership said this was a good indication that the ground came loose or a short in a switch.)  this happens when I connect anything back into the door harness (like I said, even the speaker)...

anyone seen this before? how about a wiring diagram.

thx,

pete

The year is about right for a common Volks problem : broken wires in driver's door boot. The vinyl used doesn't stand up to repeated opening and closing of doors, breaks then the wires corrode and break.

Pull them through and check one by one.

Just a hint, ground in a Volks is always Brown.

Found it about a week ago... Woohooo!!!!   Brown wire was broken. The dealership had used a butt-splice connector without adding some extra wire for slack. My baby is ok now except for cruise control, but something tells me I borrowed a fuse to see if fuse was window problem.Man, searching through these forums is very informative...an alternate site is www.myvwlemon.com (it might be www.vwlemon.com, I haven't had my morning coffee yet). I read through about 60 pages on that site before I found the clue to the door harness...your reply was really appreciated. I love my VW, I don't care what the naysayers think. If you buy a car, you will sometimes have a problem...usually after the warranty expires. It's like a law of nature I think.

Regards,

Pete and his 98 Jetta GLX (her name is Janine)