The OEM connector and its seemingly lack of strain relief will be 100 times better than crimped spade connectors and a million times more resistant to moisture ingress, if you must use them then do it well back from the switch on a fixed supported part of the cable (which there probably isn't) and enclose them with self amalgamating tape.

 

Even butt crimps (please do not Google the term 🤣) would be better then male and female spade terminals but still require the same protections.

Well, thankfully I've managed to get the reverse switch light connector off eventually by using an old wire coat hanger that I'd straightened out and then bent the end into a short hook that enabled me get to the catch on the connector which was on the underside.  It may be different on other people's cars, I suppose it just depends on the final orientation of the reversing switch when it's installed.

 

(If you're not sure how these catches work, look on top of the cylinder block, there's another one there which works the same way.)

 

My only other option would probably have been to get a set of wheel ramps, drive the car up onto them and try to get at it from underneath which would have been a massive PITA!

 

The plastic on the switch is pretty worn, but, as far as I can see, the serial number is the same as the one that Thud linked to above, certainly I can read the 1699 in the bottom right corner and the rest of the number appears to be 1J0973702, so I'm going to buy one of those and hopefully it will fit ok.

 

As for putting it in place, I've never really liked butt crimps, and, especially given the lack of space I've got to play with down in the depths of the engine, the idea of being able to get the tails of the wire in place in one of those and get them secure doesn't strike me as the easiest option.

 

In the past I've used spade terminals to extend the wires on my motorcycle's rear indicators (when I installed a top box rack) and I added a liberal spray of Duck Oil before wrapping them in electrical tape and they've been working fine for years in what is, after all, a very stressful environment (open to the elements with lots of vibration).

 

So I'm going to give crimping spade terminals a go, but make sure I leave enough wire that will enable me to cable-tie them to either a fixed point or, failing that, one of the other cables which I think should give enough support.

 

After another long delay, I finally found the time (and patience) to sort out the problem of the reversing light on my Skoda Fabia Mark II not working because the wires that go to the connector on the gearbox switch had broken.

 

Firstly I found it was easier to remove the heater hose that is in the way, it has a T15 Torx Screw at one end and T20 at the other end (another piece of clever design by Skoda!)

This gave me more room to manoeuvre, but I also bought a set of extra long pliers (about 11"), one of which has a straight end, one is 45 degrees and the other has a 90 degree end. This made it much easier to grip the wires from the loom when I was stripping the ends and then crimping the new terminals.

 

Here's a video showing some of the details, I hope this helps someone else who has had the same problem: