My lad has just discovered a fault with the cabin blower in his base model HTP, in that the fan fails to operate in positions 1 to 3 but works fine in position 4.

 

Is this possibly a heater control panel fault/failure :wonder:

 

 

TP

99% likely its the heater resistor pack that has failed, pretty common on these cars.

It lives under the passanger airbag (which needs removing to get at it)

Yep, it's a resistor, it works on number 4 because that is direct contact, no resistance, but it doesn't work on numbers 1-3 because it has overheated. My dad had 2 of these go on his VW Jetta within 6 months, we got the first one replaced and it cost about £50 including fitting as far as I can remember, (don't quote me though) and then that one blew so we got it replaced and they said if that blew as well it could be a faulty fan unit causing too much resistance and causing this issue however it could just be faulty resistors, anyway we never had one go since so we're guessing it's a couple of bad resistors. Not too bad of a problem and not that expensive to fix but a bit annoying if it happens in summer, and it's hot, which it did.