Hello,

It was working fine till a week back, and all of a sudden, only the LHS Rear Fog Lamp has stopped working on my Octavia II. The Bulb is fine and so is the fuse. I have even checked the LHS Tail Lights Panel on which all the Bulbs are placed, the connections on them are fine too. Any pointers where I should look for crux of matter? Is it possible there are 2 Fuses, 1 each for each side L/R HS?

Thank you!

How old is your Octavia, if it is a pre-facelift is it possible to code either fog light so that you can have one, the other or both working.

Having you been playing with VAGCOM / VCDS recently?

Thank you @silver1011 and @mikeholroyd for the info.

Mine is a 2006, pre-facelift. Never knew even the fogs could be programmed in this Car. I don't own a VCDS, so will have to take it the Service Station, which can wait until my next service due date, which is about a couple of months from now, no hurry.

The Octavia leaves the factory with only one fog light coded to work - depending on which side of the road you drive on.

Are you sure one side has stopped working?

I got my local Skoda dealer to re-code my car and 'activate' the other side so I now have both sides working together.

I think they do only have one. I had the same problem I though my bulb had gone but only one is active.

The Octavia leaves the factory with only one fog light coded to work - depending on which side of the road you drive on.

Are you sure one side has stopped working?

I got my local Skoda dealer to re-code my car and 'activate' the other side so I now have both sides working together.

I think they do only have one. I had the same problem I though my bulb had gone but only one is active.

Well, now I'm really confused if both the sides' lights have ever lit up at the same time or not!!! Anyways, will investigate and update if I get to know something.

I noticed this yesterday whilst checking that all the lights were okay/oil/screen-wash/etc..., & thus pulled the clusters.

I was surprised to see single-filament bulbs in-situ.

Can I presume that it's just 'plug-in & click the switch' job at the dealers, & perhaps 30 min labour?

SWMBO travels to Cardiff & Leicester 2 -3 times a week, & to me having 2 working lamps makes good sense!

EDIT:-just noticed your car is an 11 plate, therefore facelift. Sorry, it can't be done on facelift models.......... Life is so much simpler with a pre-FL.

Thankyou, but do you mean it can't be done at all, or has to be a dealer job??

And I used to think that Range Rover P38's were complex, with their 'BECM'

I'm sure it can be done but not within the realms of the dealer diagnostics or VCDS - or should I say no one has worked out how to yet!

I'm sure it can be done but not within the realms of the dealer diagnostics or VCDS - or should I say no one has worked out how to yet!

It's damned bloody stupid, penny-pinching & pathetic!!

An update; I checked with the Skoda Service Center if both the sides Rear Fog Lamps can be enabled, and the reply was "No". They say they have just one option in their VCDS, to either enable or disable both the rear fog lights, and no option to do the same individually. So I guess Ross-Tech is the only solution now.

Why are people obsessed with activating both fog lights? The second one isn't disabled as some sort of VAG conspiracy to rip you off and not give you functionality you've paid for (unlike the climatronic off button). It's like that to differentiate the fog light from the brake lights.

They are mostly if not entirely used wrongly anyway . . . heavy rain, spray, mist, because the blokes lights behind are annoying, because it s unknown how to turn them off, because its unknown they are even on.

Edited 18 June, 201214 yr by TsvRS

Why are people obsessed with activating both fog lights? The second one isn't disabled as some sort of VAG conspiracy to rip you off and not give you functionality you've paid for (unlike the climatronic off button). It's like that to differentiate the fog light from the brake lights.

Weren't both enabled on the L&K by default?

Why are people obsessed with activating both fog lights? The second one isn't disabled as some sort of VAG conspiracy to rip you off and not give you functionality you've paid for (unlike the climatronic off button). It's like that to differentiate the fog light from the brake lights.

To me, if both lamps were enabled, it would have enhaced the rear visibilty to a great extent, helping me to reverse with ease in dark lit areas. Moreover, seeing from a distance, it actually looks like one of my Brake-Lights is fused, quiete annoying.

Update; Got both the sides rear Fog Lamps enabled with a Ross-Tech Cable. I guess the VCDS provided to Skoda Service Centers is extremely limited and so is their knowledge.

I guess the VCDS provided to Skoda Service Centers is extremely limited and so is their knowledge.

Very true, we have the same issues here in the UK.

The VCDS is more advanced that the dealers diagnostics so it allows us to makes more changes than the dealers can!

Glad you got it sorted.

Weren't both enabled on the L&K by default?

Ooh, interesting, I was gonna get them programmed as I assumed only one worked... but now I don't know.... i'll let you know.

Nope, you can scotch that rumour! Just been outside for a look at the difference between the old puddle light on one side and the new led version I thought i'd try on the other (not a lot!), and there's definitely only the offside rear fog light that comes on on my L&K.

My L&K only had one enabled originally as well.

That reminds me to get my other light activated.Is anyone round Dorset area can do it?

Why are people obsessed with activating both fog lights? The second one isn't disabled as some sort of VAG conspiracy to rip you off and not give you functionality you've paid for (unlike the climatronic off button). It's like that to differentiate the fog light from the brake lights.

Exactly.I need all the notice I can get when visibility is poor in heavy rain.

Needing to differentiate between fog lights and brake lights is all well and good but on the MkII Octavia the distance between the two is enought to tell them apart.

If you are able to get confused then you are either too close or it isn't foggy enough for them to be on in the first place.

Besides that there is a 10" strip of LED's right at the top of the rear window which is a mile away from the lower part of the rear light cluster.

It is very rare for the conditions to be met that justify the use of rear fog's, however when they are I want as much rear visibility to other road users as possible and would prefer to double my chances of been seen by having two working rear fog lights.

Moving away from the debate of whether the second fog light should be activated or not (not the question posed by the OP) I can confirm that the activation of both rear fogs is possible on the pre-FL MkII Octavia but only with the use of VCDS.

The dealer is also able to do it with their diagnostic's

No UK spec MkII Octavia has both rear fog lights enabled as standard.

Nope, you can scotch that rumour! Just been outside for a look at the difference between the old puddle light on one side and the new led version I thought i'd try on the other (not a lot!), and there's definitely only the offside rear fog light that comes on on my L&K.

My bad then. I thought I'd read somewhere that twin rear fogs was a default on L&K.

I've had twin rears switched on on my Pre-FL Elegance as it can get quite foggy in the winter months on the M2,

I'm sure I've seen twin rears on several other cars (Mercs, and Caveliers spring to mind. IIRC Caveliers had twin filament tail-lights, so in effect the tail-lights became brighter with the fogs on, so they were still rear marker lights.) To my mind 2 is better than 1, and if you can't tell the difference between fogs and brakes (especially as Silver mentions, there's a strip of LEDs that come one with brakes), maybe you should stay at home when it's foggy.

if you can't tell the difference between fogs and brakes (especially as Silver mentions, there's a strip of LEDs that come one with brakes), maybe you should stay at home when it's foggy.

Agreed