Audi A8 D3 reverse lights and rear fog lights inverted

[NemBo]

Hello everyone, this is my first post here.
I have 2008 Audi A8 and my inner tail lights got broken (like most of them do).
I have recently bought brand new original ULO rear inner tail lights and replacing them was very simple. However, I noticed that when I put in reverse, fog lights come up instead of reverse lights and reverse lights come up when I turn on rear fog lights.

I thought some bulbs were missing, but they were all present.

I checked wirings on old tail lights and they seem exactly the same as the new ones.

I saw coding on VCDS in Central Electronics (09) was 0033123 where the last bit represented USA, but I changed it to 1 (Rest of World) and nothing happened. (I live in Europe btw and the tail lights are for European market).

What else should I check in coding on VCDS? What else could the problem be so the tail lights work different?

 

[NHN]

Clearly its not the same lights as if they were oem originals nothing needs revising, it should max just need any errors clearing as the lights aren't a separate module with specific coding afaik.

 

[NemBo]

Clearly its not the same lights as if they were oem originals nothing needs revising, it should max just need any errors clearing as the lights aren't a separate module with specific coding afaik.

Thanks for your reply. I might have been scammed, but they look exactly the same. Same manufacturer, same part number. But yes, with logic on, something must be wrong with the new ones, but I thought coding might fix it. No error codes found after replacing.

 

[NHN]

Its upto you, but swapping wires on the connectors will fix it tbh, but make notes of your changes if they ever go wrong

 

[ScottD3]

Hi NemBo,

This is the exact same thing as I had happen and I went through everything.
VCDS and Cables etc.
My light was a new from Audi.

I did what NHN suggested and it did work but I would get a bulb out warning.

What I did, in the end, was swap the bulbs over from inside the lights.
Remove the rear cover.
Undo the screws holding the bulb holders in (there's 2, Reverse and fog) and swap these over as is. I left the cables in, as swapping these over caused bulb warning messages.

 

[NHN]

You could try disabling cold diagnosis for those bulbs, although it may still pop up, failing that find the correct units.

 

[ScottD3]

You could try disabling cold diagnosis for those bulbs, although it may still pop up, failing that find the correct units.

The ULO ones are fine.
I think some of the light units was build Friday afternoon and they wired them up wrong way round.

 

[NemBo]

I did rewiring between reverse lights and fog lights, now everything works fine fortunately, without any errors

 

[Dantuan]

Hi NemBo,

This is the exact same thing as I had happen and I went through everything.
VCDS and Cables etc.
My light was a new from Audi.

I did what NHN suggested and it did work but I would get a bulb out warning.

What I did, in the end, was swap the bulbs over from inside the lights.
Remove the rear cover.
Undo the screws holding the bulb holders in (there's 2, Reverse and fog) and swap these over as is. I left the cables in, as swapping these over caused bulb warning messages.

@ScottD3 - Thanks for your post! I had the exact same issue with a new ULO A8 200+ inside lamp. One thing I will add is after removing the white access panel and removing the torx screws it appeared of the wires would be too short to swap bulb cradle positions - it is not. The insulated wires are just carefully tucked out of the way inside the housing. I used a plastic bone tool to help it out without pulling on it. After swapping the cradle positions and leaving the wiring as is, the correct fog and reverse lights are illuminating.

 

[Homer Simpson]

Where did you buy them from?

 

[TripleJ2001]

Anyone got any more detail on this? I have a 2008 A8 D3, and I had both rear lights replaced in March with brand new lights from Audi (am guessing they are ULO).
MOT has just failed as fog/reverse lights are reversed and Audi aren't interested as it wasn't a VAG garage that did the replacement. From what I gather there are two versions of these lights - pre-facelift and post-facelift. My car is post-facelift. Everything I've seen online seems to show that the older pre-facelift lights can be opened and modified. However, on the post-facelift I thought these were completely sealed units but maybe I'm wrong? So if I remove the lights, can I actually get to the bulbs to swap the bulb holders around?

 

[Homer Simpson]

Anyone got any more detail on this? I have a 2008 A8 D3, and I had both rear lights replaced in March with brand new lights from Audi (am guessing they are ULO).
MOT has just failed as fog/reverse lights are reversed and Audi aren't interested as it wasn't a VAG garage that did the replacement. From what I gather there are two versions of these lights - pre-facelift and post-facelift. My car is post-facelift. Everything I've seen online seems to show that the older pre-facelift lights can be opened and modified. However, on the post-facelift I thought these were completely sealed units but maybe I'm wrong? So if I remove the lights, can I actually get to the bulbs to swap the bulb holders around?

Yours should definitely by facelift on a 2008. The pre-facelift did have some bulbs you could swap but the facelift are all LEDs. Was the garage a VAT registered garage? If so, then they should replace the lights. There must be something in the coding that can be done?