Had a similar problem with the bug. Ended up being a bad contact in the relay panel under the dash. Look at the 2 relays with the number 5 on them. I simply swapped them and it worked fine. I couldn't tell you if I had any lights on the dash or not i no longer have a gauge cluster. If you need some help tracing down the problem, let me know I've got the bently for the bug (should be close to yours) and have gotten pretty good at reading the wiring diagrams. Your ecu is more than likely ok, unless you welded on the car with the battery hooked up. You could always bring your ecu to me and if it plugs into my car then we can see if it works.