I'll get right on that

     Our very excellent VW Golf TDI is 10 years old this year, and this is the month it became ours. 

When I got it home from the broker in Victoria, on considering all its attributes and parts I discovered a cord that I couldn’t immediately place. Until it occurred to me that it must be for plugging in the block heater; indeed, that was confirmed by the manual. 

So it was filed away and forgotten: we live in southern BC, on Vancouver Island, where block heaters aren’t a consideration.

File this information away for later, because I first want to tell about our experience in Quebec, where block heaters are very much an issue.

We all know there are times when it becomes bitterly cold in Quebec. How cold? Well...

The second time we lived there we were driving a 12-passenger Ford 350 van. When we arrived, in order to accommodate provincial regulations, we had to make a number of modifications,  and while the van was in the garage having this done, I had them install a block heater. This was used religiously when it got cold, because the van had been converted to propane, and propane is even less tolerant of cold than gas. Consequently, we never had problems with starting although our fuel mileage was atrocious.

The only auto-propane station in our region was in Victoriaville, and although the propane service regulations in Quebec are the same as here (to wit, the attendant has to be trained to service a propane vehicle) when it got really cold the attendants didn’t want anything to do with service, and asked me to do the fill myself. So I did. One day, when the temperature was in the high minus-20’s, I didn’t get the nozzle attached quite right, and some fuel spilled out into my hand. Where it shivered and puddled, and refused to turn into a gas. 

That’s how cold.

A number of my colleagues on staff owned VW diesels. They loved them, and were always crowing about and comparing their excellent mileage numbers. But then came the real cold, and suddenly that talk turned into what to do if your fuel turns into a gel, as diesel is apparently wont to do when it gets really cold. The block heaters they all had, I was informed, don’t resolve this problem; for that you need chemicals, available at the Canadian Tire outlet in Victoriaville. 

I believe that even in our part of BC the formulation of diesel changes with the seasons.

So I was not surprised to see the required cord, even though I wouldn’t be using it.

Fast forward to yesterday, when we got a very official-looking envelope from VW Canada, featuring a prominent red stripe on both front and back reading IMPORTANT SAFETY RECALL NOTICE  

After 10 years and Dieselgate, what could possibly still require a recall?
The enclosed letter, which revealed all, was entitled "Important Safety Recall", and subheaded: "Follow-up to Safety Recall 97EK -- Label for Engine Block Heater Cable/ label enclosed for your Engine Block Heater Cable"
It seems the previous one that had been issued, the one I don’t believe I ever received possibly because I didn’t buy the car from a dealer, came without instructions in French. 

On the reverse of the letter, instructions for installation complete with illustrations: "Engine Block Heater Warning Label Installation Instructions". These informed me that I should peel the backing off the adhesive strip, run that strip through the hole punched in the card, fold the strip around the cable, and then press the two adhesive sides together.
The new bilingual card and the tape to stick it to said cable were enclosed.