Hey everyone. The coming home / leaving home lights on my 2016 Octavia VRS have been intermittent for a while now, it's basically pot luck as to if they're going to come on or not when I unlock the car in the dark. I've been trying to work out a pattern like how long the car has been parked for, etc, but I can't seem to find anything consistent. BUT... I've worked out now that if I unlock the car in the evening once it's gone dark and it's been locked for about 4 hours (since I got home from work) then they 100% (so far) don't work. But if I then re-lock the car, wait for 30 seconds then unlock it again, they work. What the hell. Does anyone have any idea what might be wrong as it's driving me absolutely bonkers. Here is a video just so you can witness it happening...

 

https://youtu.be/KW5murjs87w

Just an update on this one - I have a dashcam which is hard-wired and has a parking mode. I did think that maybe because the dashcam was draining current while the car was parked, maybe the car thought it was sensible to disable the coming home / leaving home lights as I know it disables certain other functions when the battery gets low. Lastnight I unplugged the dashcam completely when I got home from work around 5pm and tried to unlock the car at around 9:30pm and still no lights 😭 I'm kinda glad in a way because I wanted to keep using the parking mode on my dashcam, so at least I know that's not the issue.

Does anybody have any idea on this? I've been testing my theory over the last few weeks and it's 100% consistent - Basically the leaving home lights don't work 100% of the time anymore under normal circumstances. Well, if it's dark and I nip into a shop, lock the car, come out 10 mins later and unlock it then they work. But if I park it up for 2 hours-ish or more say, then nothing. The thing that's 100% consistent is that they DO work after I unlock the car, lock it, wait for at least 30 seconds, then unlock it again. It doesn't seem to matter when I do the 30 second thing either. For example, when I was initially testing this theory, I was getting home from work at 5pm and locking the car, then unlocking the car at around 9:30pm when it was dark. Lights didn't work, lock it again, wait 30 seconds then unlock, then they work. Tried this over a few nights and it's 100% consistent. Another variation I've tried is getting home from work at 5pm, locking the car, immediately unlocking it then locking it again.... then unlocking at 9:30pm again and they work! It seems as if it needs to be unlocked and relocked with an at-least 30 second delay before unlocking again for them to work. Madness. 

 

I've read lots of threads on here and some mention could my battery be on the way out, but it's fine as far as I know. Also, I had Covid recently so didn't drive the car for a whole week. I tested my 30 second theory on the first night and then every night after that for the whole week, they just worked every time with just an unlock. So that doesn't sound like a battery issue at all if it's letting me do that. 

 

The setting is definitely enabled on the infotainment system, and also I've even tried coding it with OBDeleven. Still the same. I have a rain sensor and it works perfectly for sensing rain. I have auto lights and the auto lights work perfectly aswell. 

 

It's driving me mad!!

 

Hellllppppp pplleeeaassseee

Hi everyone,

 

Just trying to revive this thread as this issue is getting more and more on my nerves as the nights get darker. Something as simple as coming home / leaving home lights not working is driving me mad! I've made an updated video to hopefully explain the problem better and would really appreciate it if you would take the time to watch it, even though it's probably the most boring video you will ever watch 🤣

 

 

 

Thank you!

 

Unlocking under 30 seconds the control modules will still be awake, in process of shutting down.  So that I can understand.

 

After 30 seconds all good, perfect.

 

Opening after a few hours and no lights is odd sure.

 

 

Have you disabled CH/LH lights locked car, gone back in after a minute, and enabling, lock car and wait an a few hours to see if it works?

On 15/09/2022 at 19:55, varooom said:

Unlocking under 30 seconds the control modules will still be awake, in process of shutting down.  So that I can understand.

 

After 30 seconds all good, perfect.

 

Opening after a few hours and no lights is odd sure.

 

 

Have you disabled CH/LH lights locked car, gone back in after a minute, and enabling, lock car and wait an a few hours to see if it works?

 

Hi Varoom, thanks for your response. I tried that yes and still no luck unfortunately. I even tried factory resetting the whole infotainment system and it didn't make any difference either. Tried coding them with OBDeleven aswell, nothing works! Crazyness. I wish I knew what started it all. In fact, it might have been some OBDeleven coding that started it but I can't be sure. I remember I tried coding them to stay on for 60 seconds rather than the cars maximum of 30 and it was around then they might have stopped working. I have coded them back to 30 since though, and even tried 10 etc. Makes no difference. Interesting that you can't just code them to 'OFF' with OBDeleven though? Might have to get someone with VCDS to check my coding or something

Damn, I myself prefer VCDS as you can save all your original codings, does OBDeleven do this?  If it did, then would be great to set everything back to basics.

 

Alternatively you might have to go to see an Independent workshop with ODIS and a 30 minute session might be enough to get all the factory codings input to the car.

 

Hopefully you can find someone on the VCDS list that can code you back to something close to factory.

8 hours ago, varooom said:

Damn, I myself prefer VCDS as you can save all your original codings, does OBDeleven do this?  If it did, then would be great to set everything back to basics.

 

Alternatively you might have to go to see an Independent workshop with ODIS and a 30 minute session might be enough to get all the factory codings input to the car.

 

Hopefully you can find someone on the VCDS list that can code you back to something close to factory.

Yes, OBDeleven can save a copy of original coding but it also keeps a step by step audit trail of changes made.  Although I suspect the latter might disappear if the app was uninstalled and reinstalled. 

18 minutes ago, SC03OTT said:

Yes, OBDeleven can save a copy of original coding but it also keeps a step by step audit trail of changes made.  Although I suspect the latter might disappear if the app was uninstalled and reinstalled. 

 

Unfortunately I was stupid and didn't take a backup back when I first got OBDeleven 😔 As I was only going to be using the 'one click apps', which I assumed were tried & tested and wouldn't come with any issues, I didn't bother. Damnit. I have got the full audit trail still.

Is there any other way of 'factory resetting' the car's ECU / coding? I'm not really sure how the coding bits are stored but I remember the first time my Skoda dealer did a software update on the car it actually erased my remap (Superchips Bluefin) but all of my OBDeleven codings were still there 🤔