Hi All.

I did a search for this when it happened and didnt find anything so thought I'd post it up as a warning/advisory to those with mkii octavia's coming up to the end of warranty or even out of warranty to check.

I got a bulb failure warning for one of my number plate lights the other week. Thought nothing of it and bought a replacement halogen bulb after finding from here that LED's wouldnt work.

I went to replace it and found (to my horror, gasp!) that the light unit was rusted inside which had unfortunately moved across to the rectangle of steel that is cut out of the body to make the hole for the lights :( This has resulted in it going under the paint so its bubbled up around the number plate light.

It got slightly worse in that the replacement bulb wouldn't work as the light unit had now gone faulty from the corrosion. I should note that this is a 60 plate mk ii Octavia VRS facelift estate and at no point since Ive had it from new have the lights been unscrewed.

I took it to my local dealer to check and he agreed it wasnt a body corrosion problem but was caused by the faulty light unit letting in water and so would be covered. If I was out of warranty Ive wondered if Skoda would not cover this on their 10 year corrosion by blaming it on the light unit and therefore saying their bodywork was fine. Wouldnt like to try it myself but gladly im still in warranty.

Anyway, it ended up that Ive had my car over to their VW bodyshop that does all the paintwork for a fix of replacing the bulb unit and getting the rust removed and re-painted. When I dropped the car with the service manager at the bodyshop he said this was a very common problem with Passats and it happens all the time on them. A google search has confirmed this but mine was the first Octavia theyd had in.

I dropped it Tuesday and am currently in a courtesy Micra with swiss cheese for brakes so was looking forward to getting my vrs back when I got another call yesterday. The rust has got into the panel seams so the whole boot has to be replaced!! :( I should be happy really as the dealer/bodyshop have been great so far and rather than a repair that would have failed again in a few years im getting the tailgate replaced under warranty.

Im going to check with the service chap if theres any way of stopping this happening again as i'd like to seal the unit against the car to ensure it doesnt occur out of warranty! When I took off the unit to replace the bulb I did notice that the rubber on the light seal was very hard so wont deform much to mate with the panel and waterproof it. Maybe this is what has happened but we did check the other one to confirm it was ok and it was fine with no sign of water ingress.

Ive included a pic which is a bit crappy but does show some of the rust on the body. The rust on the light unit is hidden on the pic. Its happened quite easily as it doesnt look like the rectangular hole thats been cut in the body has any paint on it, almost as if its been cut after it was painted?

Hopefully Ill have my car back soon with a shiny new boot but I thought Id post this up for others to at least run their fingers around the lights to see if the paint is bubbling. Im not sure if its advisable to remove the unit to check as Ive no idea if this will then break the seal and cause yourself a problem in a few months but as I said mine had never been removed before now.

I'd also like to say that the VRS has been perfect other than this so Im not bashing it! also theres no other threads like this so it may just be an unlucky one off.

Ill keep you updated on when it comes back.

attached image didnt work so here it is

just an update. new boot filled with wax and fitted and is great. Took a while to get the part from skoda unfortunately.

While I was picking it up they let me see the old one. Apart from the rust that had gone through the hole it was showing through the seems on the other side of the boot! ie the part that is inside the car. bloody riddled with the stuff :(

Being in the micra for two weeks then getting my car back... it felt like new! lol

Good result, shouldnt be happening on a new car though.

I have slight bubbling on the tailgate right hand side where the two panels are bonded, going to take a few pics and email Skoda... should be fun lol.

Good result, shouldnt be happening on a new car though.

I have slight bubbling on the tailgate right hand side where the two panels are bonded, going to take a few pics and email Skoda... should be fun lol.

Tailgate Rusting at the point your talking about is a common issue. Dealer will do a paint thickness reading and take pictures to send to skoda. it needs the tailgate replaced to sort it properly a repair will fail again usually within a year. Henrys in glasgow got my last Vrs sorted under warranty with this issue some dealers are hopeless at dealing with it.