I have  a 2005 Fabia 1.9 TDI Estate which has generally been very reliable in the six years that I have owned it but now the nearside sidelights both front and rear have suddenly stopped working. They both stopped working at the same time, the bulb failure light came on and when I stopped neither were working. I have checked the bulbs and the fuses. In fact I swapped the fuses for known working fuses so that seems to eliminate them from the problem. Any ideas would be appreciated

A mod can move your post to the Mk1 section. i will flag it for them. 

That would be good if you can do it.

Fuse 34 checked? Leftmost column, fourth from top, 5 Amp rated.

As I posted not only checked but swapped with a known good one. Due to both bulbs failing at the same time it seemed obvious that the fault lay with the fuse. I swapped it with the offside fuse and there was no change and I swapped it with another 5amp fuse simply to be double sure. 

OK, fair enough. I find that very often when people say 'fuses checked' it turns out later that they hadn't checked the right one, so I like to refer to specific ones, and give a location guide because fusebox diagrams are often generic for LHD and RHD cars, and lead to misunderstandings of the numbering.

 

 

Edited to remove suggestion that doesn't make sense now I think about it.

 

 

Edited 14 February, 20233 yr by Breezy_Pete
dumbness removed

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Sorry, not up to solving this at the moment. 

Edited 14 February, 20233 yr by Breezy_Pete

I have just done that and now the sidelights are working😁. According to my handbook fuse 36 is for the number plate light which I never checked before I pulled the fuse. The fuse was good so I just put it back in and now all the lights are working. I presume that I have a loose connection somewhere in the fuse box.  Thank you for your help. 

Nearside side lights are still okay but since Tuesday have had the front offside side light bulb blow and replaced, on Friday the nearside brake bulb has blown. Not sure what is happening, in six years have only replaced a few bulbs, now two in one week.

Measure the voltage across battery terminals with engine running.

Edit: and get an assistant to rev the engine while you're measuring to see if it varies with rpm (shouldn't much at all).

Sometimes if the voltage regulator on the alternator goes faulty you get higher than permissible voltage. This tends to kill bulbs very fast.

Edited 19 February, 20233 yr by Breezy_Pete

I will have it checked if any more bulbs fail.

No more bulbs have failed but I will check the voltage next weekend. To add to the problems I have found that cruising on the motorway it lacks a bit of power and has an intermittent misfire and the MOT is due. I will first of all change the fuel filter and start another thread if it continues. 

Final update, it's now a month and no more bulbs have blown, I assume it was just a run of coincidental failures. As for the miss fire, that went away with the filter change. The Fabia passed its MOT with the same two advisories as for the last four years, an outer   CVJ and a rear suspension pivot