Clock went completely dead. changed batteries (alcaline) with no results. this was about two weeks ago.

yes it can the battery should be disconnected when the car is stored. Items like the clock ecu trickle power from the battery

Try charging it with a trickle charger. It might come back.
The alternator circuit is tricky and requires some battery power to excite the electromagnets in the alternator to start producing power.
It may or may not have been triggered by the boosting battery.

Disconnect power supply completely and connect back and try charging battery for about 6 to 8 hours .

hello Sylvia i think you have had your dash board taken out at some
stage previous to your owning it, there is a big electrical connector
that hooks up to the printed circuit board behind your dash. you will
need to get a techy to pull off the plastic masks around your dash
and unscrew the speedo console. we used to get alot of this fault
here in New Zealand when sellers of vehicles were clocking the
speedo's to show a lower mileage reading on the odometer, very
nasty.
cheers bucky

That is normal. A week might have been to long for a week battery but a good battery should have still had enough to start the vehicle. There could be a larger draw on the system. This could be checked with an amp meter. You should see less than .050 amps and ideally less than half os that. Aftermarket radios, vanity lights, and glove box lights are real common on volkswagens. The clock and odometer did not cause this.

I’m happy to assist further over the phone at https://www.6ya.com/expert/jeremy_d728a59f986299fa

The battery may have went completely dead, even though it was just changed.

the battery or ground

perhaps your problem is not so complicated. maybe one of your vanity mirror lights arent shutting off or something. go out in your car at night and look for light after your dome light shuts off.

the battery went orange when charged......
Ch.

Hi,
firstly buy NiMH battery , and do settings back to alcaline.

sss