Side light problems, anyone?

[A19quattro]

I have an A3 (55 reg) and tried to change the side light bulbs for the bluey white ones. The old bulb was woking fine, pulled it out and fitted the new one and it came on for about one second then went off. Now there is no power going to that side light so nothing works in it, old bulb, new bulb, nothing. I have looked at the fuses, all the ones under the bonnet seem fine and I think if one of them was gone I would have lost all left or right side lights. The box at the end of the dash I am not so sure about, nothing is mentioned in the handbook about that having anything to do with lights, anyone had similar problems?

 

[FranA3]

sometimes when a bulb blows the car shuts off the electric to that bulb , once you put a new one in you need to reset it by turning the ignition on to reset it then it should come back on , if all is well that should sort it out , did you test it without turning the ignition off then on again ??

 

[A19quattro]

Possibly, I didn't know that, I am pretty sure I have had it switched off and on again since however but still no power to the bulb holder last time I checked. I will start from scratch again tomorrow anyway, cheers.

 

[mike foster]

Please do a search for 'error free led sidelights' or similar because there are literally dozens of threads detailing the problem and you will find a member on here that supplies ones that (supposedly) do not cause problems.

Basically the led does not draw enough current and the computer thinks the bulb has blown. It then switches the power off to that circuit as a safety precaution. Left side and right side are totally different circuits. Switch off, replace the old bulb and switch back on again and all will be ok.

 

[A19quattro]

^^^ Will do, the bulbs aren't LEDs though, just normal side light bulbs that give off a buley white light, I have had them in other VAG cars with no problems, this is probably the newest though.

 

[SAiLO]

When I fitted the LED sidelights they would not come on until I've cleared error codes with VCDS.

 

[Graham89]

My sidelights did this in the end i gave up and they came back on the next day.

 

[A19quattro]

Problem solved, it was just wat FranA3 said. I did switch it off and on again but when I was thinking about it last night I didn't have a bulb in it because as far as I was concerned it wasn't working, so no point. I went out today, put the bulb in, started the ar and although it said initially that the bulb was still blown, within a few seconds the light on the dash went out and the bulb was lit. Probably also what has been behind the LED problems people had experienced that Mike Foster mentioned. Too damn smart these new fangled cars, had me stumped anyway, cheers for the advice

 

[nally]

on my 8p2 i had this problem they would show as an error then after 10 mins go off every single time i used the car. i sent them back in the end just got some philips white ones in the then.

 

[TheMacMagician]

Nally, any chance you could point me In the direction of those Philips sidelights you mention?? Cheers!!