On the eve of our annual family reunion trip, my wife called to tell me, "Your car is smoking." Well, as it approaches age 24 years, I suppose it can legally. I envisioned engine or emissions issues, but she said the smoke was inside the cabin and that she couldn't get the windows to open for a much-needed gasp of fresh air. I told her to get it towed home on a flatbed (Quattro, automatic trans.). After we returned from vacation I dissected the driver's door panel, the driver's side knee bolster, the A pillar base panel, and the steering wheel (for easier access under the dash) and found that several of the power steering wires in the door and from the A pillar to the relay panel had fried, some melting insulation, some acting themselves as fuses, some heating and burning the black electrical tape Audi uses to make up its wiring harnesses. Even though I have worked on cars for a long time and on all things electronic and electrical since high school, I have never seen anything quite like this before. I managed to find a used-but-good wiring harness for the driver's door and got that fished through, ready to reconnect at both ends. I am currently hand-rewiring from the A pillar to the relay carrier, because I can't find a replacement for that particular harness. The engine runs normally, and the sunroof even opens, so the problem seems to be confined pretty much to the power windows, possibly the alarm system. (I have not verified the latter one way or the other).

Has anyone else ever had or heard of a similar experience? All of the relevant fuses and circuit breakers are of the correct value and mostly OEM. Once the wiring is sorted out and intact, I'll bring up the power windows one at a time, checking current draw as I go. I do have a replacement lift motor available, if one of them was the cause, although I am still surprised that a fuse or circuit breaker failed to protect the wiring.