[T3] Defeat Device?

[Jim Adney]

Many of you are probably aware that I also own a late Jetta Sportwagon 
(modern Squareback, as Dave Hall refers to it) which has one of those 
offending Diesel engines. It's a great car, and I'm very happy with it, but now 
VW has offered to either fix or buy back the car.

While watching all the news accounts of this unfortunate action on VW's 
part, I cut out an article that talked about how this TDi (VW Diesel) problem 
was not the first time VW had tried to get away with a "Defeat Device" on 
one of their models.

Apparently, one of the very first Defeat Devices caught by the EPA was on 
the '73 FI Squarebacks and Fastbacks. After some Googling this week, I 
found that those came with a temperature switch that disabled the EGR 
(Exhaust Gas Recirculation) below a certain temperature. The EPA required 
VW to remove this switch on future cars sold, but did not require VW to 
remove it on the cars already out there.  

This may explain the extra temp switch that's mounted right on the brain of 
my daily driver '73. I'm always surprised to see it there, and I've never known 
what it was for. Until this past week, I didn't have a clue what it was for, 
because I'd never seen anything that mentioned it. I still need to look thru my 
literature to see if I can find it in the EGR circuit somewhere, but I'm 
confident that this explains that switch.

Anyone else out there got one of these? Does your car still have that switch 
mounted there?

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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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