Afternoon everyone, looking for some sound advice here as I'm having a mare with the dealer.

My car has just failed its mot based on the drivers aide rear foglight not coming on. Obv a failure in the UK. Now I underatand the octavia only has one rear fog, this should be the drivers side. Interestingly, the light I have come on is the passenger side, ie configured for Europe.

One dealer checked a few settings and couldnt find anything, so palmed me off on the dealer I bought it from. I'm hoping they can sort it, as they have spun the usual bumpf about warranty etc and if its not covered I will have to pay etc.

I believe its an easy fix, and ideas?

I dont think warranty comes in to it, I think the car has been incorrectly configured. Any thoughts?

For info, it is a 2010 Octavia Elegence, without maxidot or any sort of onboard computer.

Thanks for your time

Edited 9 September, 201411 yr by yason2004

If the car was bought in the UK, the RH rear fog would be enabled. How was the LH fog light enabled for use in Europe?

...or are you saying the car has never been set for use in Europe?

well ive never had it set. my argument is that it passed its first mot 12 months ago, and as far as I'm concerned nothing has changed. I wouldn't expect a wiring fault to have happened which would transfer the fog to the left hand side. I guess im preparing myself for an argument over payment!!

Has both been enabled and the o/s just has a blown bulb?

Might be worth checking this cheap option first

oh yep, checked that one. the rear light still works and its the same bulb. :-) thats what the service guy said...

I cant think of any means by which it would just go wrong, so I can omly assume its always been that way

The light must have been checked at service and at the previous MOT, so the chances are that it must have been correct at the time.  It could be a software glitch in the cars electrical distribution control unit due to a voltage fluctuation, don't think of it as wires from switches to components, its wires from switches to control units that instruct components to work.

 

If you don't want to pay or get the cheapest possible repair, get someone with VCDS to look at the coding of the control unit.  I've seen it once before and couldn't get just the offside fog lamp to work, I had to recode for both fog lamps.

That's an interesting comment. that sounds good to me, as far as I am concerned it is still under warranty so will see what happens

On the pre-facelift Octavia it was possible to activate the left side rear fog so that both the right and left side worked together.

 

There has been lot's of threads about how it isn't possible on the facelift (which I'm assuming the OP's is as it's a 2010), yet it is possible to configure it so the left side works and not the right side, for cars being exported to mainland Europe - but never both on together.

 

It sounds to me as though you have an electrical glitch or someone has been fiddling with VCDS?

 

You are right that it can't be the bulb. The estate has a single bulb that performs the role of tail light and then simply gets brighter to perform the role of fog light, so if the bulb is illuminating when the night lights are on then the bulb is fine.

 

It is amazing how many dealers cannot get to grips with these software changes, a main dealer trying to fob you off to the supplying dealer is bad and just goes to show that the system is either under utilised or simply mis-understood.

 

You'd think Skoda would list all of the possible CANBUS configurations in plain English that the dealers can refer to and understand.

an idiots guide for dealers would be helpful haha. I doubt anyone would've been fiddling, as im the second owner and the previous was a company car.

that said just after I bought it I asked skoda to turn the drl's on. they couldn't find the setting, but they apparently turned on cornering fogs. whatever they did it didnt work but I wonder if this is what screwed up the rear fog....

that said just after I bought it I asked skoda to turn the drl's on. they couldn't find the setting, but they apparently turned on cornering fogs. whatever they did it didnt work but I wonder if this is what screwed up the rear fog....

 

Bingo!

 

The DRL's are dead easy to turn on, I'm not a betting man but I'll have a tenner on them screwing up your rear fogs whilst messing about trying to do something that should be so straight forward for a trained technician in a Skoda franchised main dealer.

Update.

All fixed. Turns out when they tried to turn the DRL's on last year they changed the setting for the rear lights to drive in the right instead. So now I have the correct rear lights, and DRL's turned on.

Alls well that ends well...

Cheers guys!