VCDS - rear fog lights?

[ronime]

The trend for many years now has been for small and medium sized cars to have a single reversing light and a single rear fog light, positioned appropriately for LHD and RHD applications.

 

I was therefore surprised to discover that the humble little Citigo has both reversing light bulbs AND fog light bulbs in both rear light clusters. I was then disappointed that only the O/S fog light is activated.

 

Unless I am mistaken, the rear fog light function can be swapped over to the N/S in VCDS but does anyone know if it is possible to enable both rear fog lights simultaneously via suitable encoding in VCDS?

[rum4mo]

I'm guessing here, but, I'd think that in the car software configuration, the RHD/LHD selection would change them across. Also, the EU mandate would normally cover the minimum requirement which would be for only the "offside" light to be illuminated.

I have in the past hard wired the "nearside" light to the "offside" light to get both sides on, though there is a school of thought that says that in the unlikely event of your "offside" bulb failing and therefore your "nearside" remaining on, you could be mistaken for a motorbike/scooter and so might get clipped by an idiot driver not giving enough room?  I'm a bit 50/50 on that though!

[Chris GB]

Also consider the brake light making effect of fog lights.

[stooz]

is there a bulb in there not being used or just the capacity for one ?! handy spare bulb carrying spot as well

[ronime]

The bulb is in there.

is there a bulb in there not being used or just the capacity for one ?! handy spare bulb carrying spot as well

Yep, there is a bulb in there already.

[ronime]

Also consider the brake light making effect of fog lights.

Encore, en anglais s'il vous plait.

[Chris GB]

Masking effect ^

[ronime]

I see what you mean. Brake lights at the top, fog lights at the bottom and a high level brake light for good measure. There are design and construction rules that take this into account.

[peter3197]

There has to be a bulb in the n/s foglight spot as it is also the bottom sidelight. Both of the bulbs in the foglight positions are twin filament but only the o/s fog filament illuminates.

[allanhodgson]

The rear light clusters contain no logic circuitry and are fully insulated. Therefore their wiring needs can easily be enumerated - they have five functions and therefore require six wires to operate fully: Rear/brake/indicator/reversing/fog/earth. The right cluster has six wires and is therefore fully operational, the left cluster has five wires and is therefore missing one function. The plug wire to position 1 (fog light (+) on the circuit board is missing, therefore the fog light does not work. Unless this wire is earlier terminated in the wiring loom (any ideas?), the easiest alternative would be to jury rig a cable from the right cluster to the left. It seems very perverse logic to me, as I assumed at first that a bulb had blown, then that a socket had failed, before tracing the circuitry.

As an aside, the middle double-filament lights on each side could be connected to the brake light strips, giving you extra brake lighting.