Reverse Lights

[_Jacobm]

Hey guys,

Slight concern. Only got one reverse light, is this a retarded European feature like a lot of things like my father supposes, or is this a legitimate issue? Car is one month new, please let me know!

Thanks guys

[deanno606]

Standard

Sent from my GT-I9305T using Tapatalk

[jz_64_eh]

My 9n does the same thing and was wondering that as well, thanks

[Guest001]

The opposite light is a parking light which is used as such in Euro countries.

[MrDeathLad]

The opposite light is a parking light which is used as such in Euro countries.

i thought it was a fog light on the other side?

[nomadx38]

It is a fog light. The parking lights are the "L" shapes

[Guest001]

It is a fog light. The parking lights are the "L" shapes

You could be right but lots of Euro cars have a light for long time night parking on one side. Havent tried mine to see which it is.

[SonicAaron]

Yeah we drive on the left hand side of the road in Ireland and UK so our parking light is on the right if you leave the indicator on, and left is the reverse.

[nemesis]

I suspect that the driver's side tail-light has a fog light while the left side has a reversing light. I find this annoying too. I also wish manufacturers would use LED reversing lights to improve the lighting for reversing. I don't know if the optional reversing camera improves visibility.

[VW Convert]

You could be right but lots of Euro cars have a light for long time night parking on one side. Havent tried mine to see which it is.

Half right! LOL

Park lights on VWs (and I believe most European cars) are operated by the blinker stalk. Push up (as if operating R/H blinkers) operates R/H front and rear park light, push down (as if operating L/H blinkers) operates L/H front and rear park light. When actuated, a tone sounds as you open the door to let you know you have switched this feature on.

Cheers

George

[brad]

You could be right but lots of Euro cars have a light for long time night parking on one side. Havent tried mine to see which it is.

The opposite number will be the fog light.

Neither the reverse or the fog light will be the "parking" light (one side only) because they will be too high a wattage = excess current draw & possible flat battery if left on overnight. The parking light will be one of the lower wattage, red bulbs.

Park with the blinker pushed down & switch the ignition off & the LHS will light. Park with the blinker pushed up & ignition off & the RHS will light.

[nomadx38]

The opposite number will be the fog light.

Neither the reverse or the fog light will be the "parking" light (one side only) because they will be too high a wattage = excess current draw & possible flat battery if left on overnight. The parking light will be one of the lower wattage, red bulbs.

Park with the blinker pushed down & switch the ignition off & the LHS will light. Park with the blinker pushed up & ignition off & the RHS will light.

Spot on! - Couldn't have said it better.

The foglight (and reverse) are 21 watt bulbs and would kill the battery in hours. Also the foglight is too bright for "parking" and would blind motorists or confuse them. As a result the foglight can only be used when the lighting switch is on "low-beams" and the ignition is on.

There are two forms of parking lights. One is a short term and one long term. The short term one is activated on the main headlight switch and has all parking lights on - this includes front and back parking lights and interior lighting and instrument cluster.

The long term one only uses the front and rear parking lights on the side you choose with the indicator stalk. No interior lights which saves quite a bit of power.

Also I'm pretty sure reversing light like a foglight is a indicator of movement (if you would call it that). It's not designed to be a spot light to see with. It's to inform motorists / people that you are reversing, and it's bright enough that it can be seen far enough away.

It is for the same reason that the front of the car is all white (leading in front), sides yellow and back red (trails behind). This is also why it is illegal to park facing the wrong way on the road. Motorists who see white (front of car) on the left of the road may get confused and think they are on the wrong side of the road.

[DV52]

Hey guys,

Slight concern. Only got one reverse light, is this a retarded European feature like a lot of things like my father supposes, or is this a legitimate issue? Car is one month new, please let me know!

Thanks guys

Jacobm: I'm fairly sure that the good burghers at VW see the crappy mono reverse light as a feature on their cars, rather than as a problem.
The same issue arose on a friend's Golf (Mk6 version) which I managed to fix. I understand from the driver that the solution, whilst somewhat complicated, works well and I have been told that when reverse gear is selected, the entire back yard is illuminated (probably too bright - I suspect)

Anyhow, this is what I did to fix the problem (my apology again for the complex explanation):

From the outset, I was keen to find a way of installing an additional backing light for the Golf that didn't necessitate installing more wiring from inside the boot space area.

First - I bought from eBay a 12V remote control switch that is typically used on burglar alarms. These units consist of one, or more transmitters (usually a key fob type) and receiver (usually housed in a plastic box). The transmitter uses a small 12V battery - about a third the size of a AAA cell. I needed to be careful to buy a remote control switch that is of the "momentary" type. This means that the contacts on the receiver are closed only for the time that the switch on the transmitter is pressed. The more usual burglar alarm remotes have what's called a latching contact (which means that pressing the key fob switch once closes the receiver contact and pressing the key fob again opens the receiver contact).

Second, I made-up a light using a CREE XML LED and a 1Amp LED driver. These lights are typically used as Bike lights or they are used in the better torches. I could probably have bought a fully functioning light from EBay, but I needed to find one that does NOT have fancy switching modes (like flashing and half bright modes). For the application, it is important that the LED light simply switches onto full brightness when supply is connected (and that's all).

OK. Now that I had all the components, I then needed to install them onto the car. I did this by screwing the remote control receiver box and the LED light to the rear bottom panel of the Golf (it was painted black as I recall). The LED light is simply wired to the output of the receiver contact (and to earth). The Golf fortunately had a tow bar and an 18 pin connector plug. I wired the "live" 12V supply for the receiver box to the "live" wire on the tow bar connector plug (this wire is live whenever the ignition is switched-on).

With all that done, I then needed to figure-out how to turn on the receiver with the key fob transmitter whenever reverse gear was selected. Converting the key fob transmitter to a simple on/off switch was easy - I simply soldered a wired across the contacts of the button so that key fob was permanently "on". This meant that whenever supply was connected to the key fob, the transmitter was turned-on and therefore, the receiver would be turned-on (and the LED light would be turned-on).

The problem now was to find a place on the Golf to connect the transmitter. The obvious answer was to make this connection was across the one backing lamp (i.e. in the panel behind the rear tailgate). However, one of the peculiarities of modern cars (like Golfs and Polos) is their reliance on ODB2 protocols. This means that the car's wiring is used to both supply power to various devices (like the one backing light) and for control signals. I connected a Cathode Ray Oscilloscope across the backing light on the Golf before I went any further to see what was happening when reverse gear was selected. The CRO clearly showed a solid 12 supply voltage across the backing light (no surprises there). However, superimposed on this 12 trace was a "negative pulse". I can't remember the timing details of the pulse, but suffice to say that I needed to account for this signal in turning-on the transmitter. To ensure that the transmitter turned-on reliably and ensure that the transmitter did not affect the control pulse across the backing light I soldered together (in series) a diode and an electrolytic capacitor (small size, can't remember the actual value). This simple circuit was then wired across the battery connections of the key fob transmitter and then the transmitter was wired across the backing light terminals.

Bingo!! My friend's Golf now has two backing lights (the original VW light and the new, super bright LED light)

[nomadx38]

Haha lol I just changed the bulb from red to white and re pinned it, patching the right light into the left...

[DV52]

Haha lol I just changed the bulb from red to white and re pinned it, patching the right light into the left...

Nomadx38: haha lol! I'm glad that in your case, the solution was easy.

I tried something similar in one of my early attempts to solve this problem. Did it by hooking-up (using a set of temporary wires) a non VW lamp base across the backing light and then trying different wattage lamps. The problem was that to get the light level wanted, I needed a relatively high wattage lamp. I never bothered trying to get a lamp that fitted the VW (and with the same wattage) because the bulb warning indicator on the MFD kept comming up when reverse gear was selected.

Of course I could have simply installed the CREE LED light in place of the "red light", but that would have necessitated a physical modification of the LH light fitting. For aethetic and warranty reasons, the owner of the Golf was unwilling to do this.