ok i freaked out a few nights ago. Turned the ingition on and smoke started to come out of the heater leaver spaces on the front of the dash!! I took the key out but it kept going for about 15secs. i thought, oh sh@t i just bought this and its going to catch on fire!!. It stopped. I figured i would try again, turned the key on nothing happened. I noted that the vents where pulled down, they where previously up, my kids where probably messing around, so i pushed them up. the blinkers worked, the dash light still worked, everything was at it should be, other than the lingering smell of smoke!!so i drove, home, from the bottle shop, had a beer, settled down, got a flash light and had a good look. Found a wrag shoved up under the radio, i know now to stop some rattling in the dash. I figured that the heater levers when pulled down may have pushed caused the tea towel to touch something, but the tea towel had no burns on it and as far as i could see, nothing looked scorched. I feel lucky, but is there somehting else i should look for, i have had no futher smoke and all the electricals seem as they were.

Volkswagenwerk in their wisdom, have the main power cables going to dash switches BEFORE they go to the Fuse box....
This is dangerous... I am going to add a fusible link to My cables, at the battery... stops fires...
I hope You have the Mandatory FIRE Extinguisher in Your Kombi....
The cables or levers MUST be shorting out on the switches...
If You had left the ignition on, the wires would have melted and tea towel would have caught fire...
Make that Two Fire Extinguishers....

Lee

when you say 2 fire extinguishers are you being serious, as iwas just thinking isnt there one for elictrical fires and one for combustion fires?