Has any one had problems with the bulbs in the rear light clusters causing a "Check Bulb " message, which is correct but simply tapping the light cluster or undoing the screws to remove causes the bulb to illuminate and the error to clear?

My partners Fabia has twice displayed this message for a reversing light bulb. The car is an Auto which unlike a manual, it's not possible to switch on the ignition and engage reverse and check the lights oneself, So she started the engine selected reverse and I looked checked the rear lights, offside reverse light is not working tapped the cover and the light comes on, tapped it a few more times and it remains on. So dodgy contact but its stayed working for some months.

This week the "Check Reversing Light" message comes up again for the other side, so decide to replace the bulb, remove the cluster easily but outside at night its difficult to release the clips, so replace the cluster, and reverse the Fabia into the garage, and now the reversing lights are both working again. So decide to leave working lights alone, on the if it ain't broke don't mess with it, but the theres a part of me that says its broke some of the time and it shouldn't be broke any of the time!

Has anyone else had this intermittent contact issue on the rear light clusters and actually found corrosion on the bulb holders or contacts?

Maybe not the same issue with this age of Skoda Fabia, but, I've found on some at least an older VW Polo, that the rear light cluster bulb contacts were now being made from steel that is galvanised to resist corrosion, and these steel contacts are very strong and so can end up distorting the lead(?) solder blob on the ends of the bulbs - that ends up creating a poor/intermittent/lost contact - that I resolved the first time by just replacing the bulb, next time I reflowed the solder on the original bulb and refitted it.

Just another example of "progress" (cheapness) creating a problem down the line.

I would see if this just goes away as possibly another lot of computer system or programing brain-farts. On my wife's 2015 twice we had the amber triangle of doom for a brake light issue that immediately resolved itself.

Battery state of charge and health reasonably OK?

Of course yours might be a different issue but here's what happened on my wife's 2015, if you're interested. (ETA: as I remember it but there are probably other mentions of these happenings in my previous posts that might confirm time scales)

First time was just before we left a car park, my wife's was driving of course, switched ignition off for about a minute before turning it back on with no amber light of doom. I got out, in the start of the rain and checked the brake lights which were fine on repeated various tests. At home when dry, just in case I took the cluster off to check wiring, connections and bulb, everything was fine, I swapped the brake light bulbs from one side of the car to the other so that if there was a return of the fault I could see if it remained on the same side. The issue went away.

Much later, possibly many months or a couple of year, I forget, the amber light of doom lit up again for brake light but went off again with turning ignition off and back on and all bulbs were working so I thought I'd leave it until the amber light of doom returned again but it hasn't and that has been years.

As a matter of habit if I'm outside when my wife breaks at the end of the road I look out for the brakes and indicator and I very occasionally check the rear lights when checking the car and if I'm driving I look for the lights and reflections before I drive off from home or elsewhere I do not rely on a computer system as (thank gawd) I'm very used to cars without them.

Edited 6 December, 20256 Dec by nta16
ETA:

Bit of an update. The nearside reversing light wasn't working again and the 'Check Reversing Light' message was displayed along with the Triangle - what I now refer to as the 'Bermuda Triangle'. A quick tap on the light unit and the reversing light comes back on. So light of replies received I decided to remove the light unit and examine the bulbs and contacts. First though a few hints and tips regarding the cluster removal.

The light unit is held by two Torx head screws on one side, on the other, outer, side where the unit meets the rear wing its a push fit over two studs, a plastic trim removal blade is required to prise the unit off the studs. The cable that plugs into the socket on the backplate backplate does not have enough slack to allow the plug to be removed so the backplate has to be unclipped. There are 4 or 5 clips that all have to be released. Being plastic care has to be taken not to snap them off. I found pressing the backplate onto the unit body by each clip would reduce the pressure on the clip which made it easier to release, work round each clip in turn and its released. There are two small bulbs that are outside the backplate, they both twist 90 degrees to release and pull out. The plug on the cable can be released by pressing the side by the red plastic which will release the clip.

The contacts were not corroded, the only thing I did notice was that the reversing bulb was not as securely held as all the other bulbs. After removing and refitting the bulb a number of times I come to the conclusion that it needed to be inserted firmly and twisted into position until it located in an indent to hold the little pins on the body of the bulb. Doing this the bulb seemed secure.

Put it all back together and everything is now working as it should - it remains to be seen for how long though......I smeared some Silicone grease over each of the clips on the backplate and their mating points on the light body - it makes it easier to slide on and off.

I think that it was my wife's previous car, a 2002 VW Polo bought new, that forced me to buy a set of Laser Tools "headlight remover kit" they are just long bent bits of stiff metal which resembles banding with a thin strip of plastic behind it - the plastic is there to protect the paintwork.

That worked perfectly when needing to remove the rear light clusters to replace either the indicator bulbs or brake/rear light bulbs.

Lengths of cable was an issue with that car, and from memory on her current car a 2015 VW Polo - but in over 10 years, I've only ever removed its rear light clusters once, really just to make sure that I had confirmed the bulb types used and to make sure that if I need to change a bulb, I have already opened these clusters up.

Maybe I should dig out that Laser Tools kit and have a look, just to make sure that "all is good" though most of the lights are LED and the bulbs are now proper "long life" - or is that just "high price".