Help please, Rear light flashing

[duffy78]

I'll do my best to explain what is happening. Upon turning the key in the ignition i get a warning beep and displayed in the DIS is the check bulb sign and it says drivers rear light. This all happened first time in the dark on wednesday.

So i get out of the car to double check which light is out and on the drivers side the light is out but the brake light is flashing steadily on and off about once per second.

Any ideas what this could be? First i thought ABS but the abs light comes and and goes out as it should and the abs is still working when braking heavy on ice / snow etc.

Last week when coming back from work in Warrington which is a 2.5 hour drive the traction control light came on for the last 10 minutes of the journey. Not sure if this has anything to do with the above.


Any advice or help would be appreciated.

 

[AudiLeon]

I'll do my best to explain what is happening. Upon turning the key in the ignition i get a warning beep and displayed in the DIS is the check bulb sign and it says drivers rear light. This all happened first time in the dark on wednesday.

So i get out of the car to double check which light is out and on the drivers side the light is out but the brake light is flashing steadily on and off about once per second.

Any ideas what this could be? First i thought ABS but the abs light comes and and goes out as it should and the abs is still working when braking heavy on ice / snow etc.

Last week when coming back from work in Warrington which is a 2.5 hour drive the traction control light came on for the last 10 minutes of the journey. Not sure if this has anything to do with the above.


Any advice or help would be appreciated.

Sounds like the brake light switch.

 

[VagCabby]

How long have you had the car? If its a recent purchase check that it hasn't has LED bulbs fitted at the rear. Faulty LED bulbs flash if there on their way out.

 

[quattrojames]

Have you tried another bulb?

 

[Andi25th]

Try replacing the bulb first, might be shorting somewhere.

 

[duffy78]

Going to try a bulb tonight.

 

[duffy78]

Go to the top of the class that man who suggested led bulbs.

Look at this mess

Led bulb gubbins has melted into the side of the light clusters. Clusters filled with water and caused a short!

One of the clusters is all blackened with charcoal so I'm pretty lucky that there wasn't an electrical fire!

Ill be putting it all back to oem and sealing the clusters as best I can

 

[Andi25th]

Christ what a mess.

 

[crazy88]

Wow, that's horrendous! Luckily nothing serious came from it. Is the car new to you then? It seems like they've mounted the power resistors to the plastic? Silly sausages!

 

[VagCabby]

Wow that's bad! As you said lucky it didn't set on fire. Some people shouldn't attempt electrics. Unbelievable. All that for the sake of a bulb.

 

[quattrojames]

So it's a standard cluster with a led bulb been put it it, and resistors melted the housing? Eeek.

 

[duffy78]

I've had the car 8 months.

Any tips on how to reverse engineer this? If someone could link to a page showing an install I should be able to work it out.

 

[VagCabby]

I think your best bet would be to remove all that crappy red insulating tape so you can see what your dealing with. I assume they have tapped into your original wiring loom. I'd just snip or unsolder any aftermarket wires coming off the loom then just fit standard bulbs.

 

[duffy78]

All sorted now. I snipped out all aftermarket wiring and installed some normal filament bulbs.

Thanks for all the advice.