Nearside parking lights turning on by themselves and won't switch off
Hi Folks
I'm back in a B6 (my third) after a three year hiatus in a B5. Previously I had a 2001 1.8T quattro Sport and then a 2003 S4. The latest is a 2001 2.5TDI quattro Sport.
I've had the car just over a month and I'm experiencing a frustrating and annoying problem I've not encountered before in five previous Audis. Periodically, the nearside parking lights turn on by themselves and cannot be switched off by any means. This occurs randomly, and without anything obviously triggering it. It happens after I've driven the car with the lights on and without, and on a number of occasions the lights have turned on all by themselves during the day or night, leaving me with no option but to disconnect the battery in order to avoid draining it. Usually, doing so kills the light only for it to return again randomly sometime later after re-connecting. It will also re-ignite straight away if I re-connect the battery shortly afterwards, but not always. The problem has disappeared once or twice for several days in a row, and then re-occurred daily over the following few days - there's no pattern to it.
The parking lights work perfectly normally in isolation, with the buzzer sounding when it should (stalk down or up with key out). Equally, the lights themselves all work as they should and there are no other obvious electrical anomalies.
I had the car scanned for DTCs at ADI and it showed the following:
http://wiki.ross-tech.com/wiki/index.php/01561
http://wiki.ross-tech.com/wiki/index.php/01562
http://wiki.ross-tech.com/wiki/index.php/01134
The guy who scanned the car felt that these codes weren't necessarily related to the problem with the lights, and as I hadn't had the car long I had no way of knowing if these were old stored faults. They were cleared but unfortunately I don't have easy access to VCDS so I don't know if they've since re-appeared. All the doors and the boot lock and unlock normally as I would expect them to. There's no water in the plenum chamber and no damp passenger footwell carpet, so no obvious signs of CCM water ingress.
When I first noticed this problem and realised that all attempts to turn off the lights were futile, I removed the rear light cluster and pulled the bulbs. As soon as I did so the offside tail light lit up instead, together with the offside front side light which also came on in addition to the nearside one already lit. :aargh4:
All my Audi-owning friends are stumped (including past and present B6 owners), so I'd be very grateful to anyone who may be able to shed any light(!) on this or offer any suggestions as to a solution. This is spoiling what is otherwise a very good car.
Any B6 owners out there had this problem? Thanks.
Re: Nearside parking lights turning on by themselves and won't switch off
Hello John, good to see you posting.
Could it be a problem with the wiper stalk ?
Might be worth giving it a squirt with some contact cleaner, also check all bulbs making sure the are the correct bulbs and have clean contacts.
Re: Nearside parking lights turning on by themselves and won't switch off
Electrical gremlins,nightmare!Got a towbar fitted,or any evidence of fitting.
Re: Nearside parking lights turning on by themselves and won't switch off
Thanks George! Will check the bulbs and contacts etc. No, no towbar has ever been fitted.
Re: Nearside parking lights turning on by themselves and won't switch off
Thanks to rain I haven't had the opportunity to check any of the bulbs yet. However, since Sunday evening the offside sidelights are now sticking on too. Last night I disconnected the battery as usual, left it for a while and then reconnected it later when I had to retrieve something from the boot. At first no lights came on so I locked up and left it, but an hour or so later when I checked again the nearside rear sidelight was on and BOTH front sidelights.
This morning when I reconnected the battery nothing came on, but by the time I'd got to work all four sidelights were on.
One thing perhaps worth mentioning is that if I lock the car from the inside using the fob and then trigger the alarm by moving about inside, the hazards flash as expected but there is no alarm sound. I only discovered this last night. I wonder if this could be related to or a symptom of the sidelight problem?
Re: Nearside parking lights turning on by themselves and won't switch off
could be the alarm siren is broke...not uncommon, also could be a sign that the plenum chamber has flooded at some time in the past.
You can test the alarm horn with VCDS, there is a "how to" here regarding fixing the leaky batteries inside the alarm....
Re: Nearside parking lights turning on by themselves and won't switch off
I know it's not a long term solution, but it maybe worth buying a cheap basic switch, or even an inline fuse with some wiring. Just place that temporarily in between the wiring loom and bulbs, then use that to switch them off at night - save keep faffing with the battery? At least until you've found the cause.
Re: Nearside parking lights turning on by themselves and won't switch off
Thanks for that. Someone else also suggested putting a switch on the battery itself.
Kite - thanks for the tip. I did see the alarm thread recently - time to read it properly! Unfortunately I don't have VCDS...you up here any time soon (hint hint)?
Re: Nearside parking lights turning on by themselves and won't switch off
I dont get up to your area often, but I'm off work next weekend.if your about.....
Re: Nearside parking lights turning on by themselves and won't switch off
I'm not sure if this will be of any use at all, but I'll post it anyway...
Last winter, my partner's 2004 Polo went mental. Not enough antifreeze in the washer fluid and it froze in the pump - when the pump was activated, it blew a fuse. As a result of this, the electric mirrors started going in reverse (move the left knob up & the right mirror went down etc), the electric windows went down when you pulled up, up when you pushed down. All sorts of crazy stuff. When it thawed out, replaced the fuse and all the problems went away - the motor was fine too.
I'm not saying it's just a fuse, but another problem (boot siren?) may be causing others to manifest themselves because of mixed signals returning to the various ECU's?