No Brake Lights

[Boardmonkey]

Hi Guys

So we discovered yesterday that we have no brake lights. Who knows how long we’ve not had them working. We don’t get any error or warning on the Dash.

I called VW assist and they sent the AA as they don’t cover north devon! Great AA guy spent about 2 hours looking at the van. His computer said the was a “short to ground on the brake lights”. Sometimes we could clear it sometimes it wouldn’t allow us to clear it. When it would clear the lights would work fine for a few seconds and would then fail. Sometimes on the second pedal press, sometimes when we shut the rear doors.
We removed bulbs, light clusters, checked panels in the rear doors for pinched wires. Couldn’t see anything or isolate the fault. We’ve changed the brake light switch which on the T6 is on the master cylinder. Now we are stuck!!!
The Van is a 2018 LWB T6. But it has had a full camper conversion in it. Just wanted to know if any off you experienced people have seen it before? It’s gonna be low loadered back to VW after our holiday. My concern is VW might be funny about the warranty due to it being converted, anyone had experience of this?

thanks for any help or thoughts.

 

[Loz]

Sounds similar to others that found that cables in the roof had been pinched/damaged in the roof during conversion.

VW will charge like a Rhino for this work, I suggest you take it back to the converter and tell them to fix it.

 

[Dellmassive]

as @Loz above.

crushed cable or water intrusion in high-level brake light.
disconnect the rear clusters and high-level brake light lamp. . . .
go to under seat T17n and disconect rear half of the loom.



Use a multimeter to resistance to check the cable run.
black/read (brake light) wire to chassis ground.



if the wire shows open circuit, start reconnecting the rear light clusters and wiggling the looms until the fault rear appears . . .
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alternatively, if you have a scan tool.

clear all codes.
disconnect all clusters and re-test, then add one cluster at a time and retest
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[Boardmonkey]

Thanks for the advice guys. Gonna definitely bounce it back to the converters to check over.
What’s strange is that on retesting two days ago the brake lights worked fine. Took it for a good 30min drive down north devon bouncy lanes and they kept working.

We did change the brake light switch 2 days previous, but straight after changing it, the brake lights still didn’t work. I guess what I’m thinking is might they not have worked with the new switch because the ecu hadn’t reset the fault, or rescanned, whatever they do!?!?!

We didn’t have a OBD reader so couldn’t clear the fault that way. Do you know what causes the ecu to reset or rescan for faults? We did disconnect the battery, but for less than a minute. But the brake lights still didn’t work after that. Two days later I restarted to van and tested them and they have worked fine since. I do have the old switch to put back in to see if it breaks again, but without an OBD reader I’m not sure I should! Would Carista pick up this fault?
Thanks again.
Tim