T5 Courtesy lights not working

[OllieCollieCali]

Hi All,
I have a problem with the courtesy interior lights on my T5, none of them come on when you open a door (step lights, light by mirror or spotlights) Ive only had the van a couple of months, and pretty sure they were all working when I bought the van (except for one step light by the sliding door) , but have all stopped now.

I have checked all of the fuses a few times, and no issues there, I unplugged the switch unit below the mirror and there is 12v power there on a couple of wires, I unplugged the courtesy lights below the mirror and theres 12v power there as well. The door open symbol comes up on the dash when a door is open. Batteries all good, and also doesnt work plugged in or engine running.

Am I right in assuming it could be an earth fault somewhere? Anyone else had this issue or know of a normal fault? Can anyone point me in the direction of best places to look / try? Hopefully be an easy fix when I find it as they were working before.

Many thanks!!

Graeme

 

[WelshGas]

Hi All,
I have a problem with the courtesy interior lights on my T5, none of them come on when you open a door (step lights, light by mirror or spotlights) Ive only had the van a couple of months, and pretty sure they were all working when I bought the van (except for one step light by the sliding door) , but have all stopped now.

I have checked all of the fuses a few times, and no issues there, I unplugged the switch unit below the mirror and there is 12v power there on a couple of wires, I unplugged the courtesy lights below the mirror and theres 12v power there as well. The door open symbol comes up on the dash when a door is open. Batteries all good, and also doesnt work plugged in or engine running.

Am I right in assuming it could be an earth fault somewhere? Anyone else had this issue or know of a normal fault? Can anyone point me in the direction of best places to look / try? Hopefully be an easy fix when I find it as they were working before.

Many thanks!!

Graeme

As far as I am aware the lights work on a switched Earth, so probably is an earthing problem. Unfortunately I don’t know if there is a common Earth point for all of them.

 

[WelshGas]

Hi All,
I have a problem with the courtesy interior lights on my T5, none of them come on when you open a door (step lights, light by mirror or spotlights) Ive only had the van a couple of months, and pretty sure they were all working when I bought the van (except for one step light by the sliding door) , but have all stopped now.

I have checked all of the fuses a few times, and no issues there, I unplugged the switch unit below the mirror and there is 12v power there on a couple of wires, I unplugged the courtesy lights below the mirror and theres 12v power there as well. The door open symbol comes up on the dash when a door is open. Batteries all good, and also doesnt work plugged in or engine running.

Am I right in assuming it could be an earth fault somewhere? Anyone else had this issue or know of a normal fault? Can anyone point me in the direction of best places to look / try? Hopefully be an easy fix when I find it as they were working before.

Many thanks!!

Graeme

This might help for Earth point locations. I know it is for the T6 but I think they are in similar positions. Any BROWN wire is an Earth wire as far as I am aware.

 

[Drpps]

Hi All,
I have a problem with the courtesy interior lights on my T5, none of them come on when you open a door (step lights, light by mirror or spotlights) Ive only had the van a couple of months, and pretty sure they were all working when I bought the van (except for one step light by the sliding door) , but have all stopped now.

I have checked all of the fuses a few times, and no issues there, I unplugged the switch unit below the mirror and there is 12v power there on a couple of wires, I unplugged the courtesy lights below the mirror and theres 12v power there as well. The door open symbol comes up on the dash when a door is open. Batteries all good, and also doesnt work plugged in or engine running.

Am I right in assuming it could be an earth fault somewhere? Anyone else had this issue or know of a normal fault? Can anyone point me in the direction of best places to look / try? Hopefully be an easy fix when I find it as they were working before.

Many thanks!!

Graeme

I am sure you have checked this and please don't take this as trying to suck eggs etc but you haven't mentioned what happens with the rocker switch on the overhead console? If you turn it on to the right do all the lights work then, but just not when the door opens. or has the rocker switch been knocked to the left position so they are all turned off. And do the reading lights work individually?
If they work on the switch then the fault could be along the loop sensing door open, if not it could be an earthing fault.

 

[OllieCollieCali]

I am sure you have checked this and please don't take this as trying to suck eggs etc but you haven't mentioned what happens with the rocker switch on the overhead console? If you turn it on to the right do all the lights work then, but just not when the door opens. or has the rocker switch been knocked to the left position so they are all turned off. And do the reading lights work individually?
If they work on the switch then the fault could be along the loop sensing door open, if not it could be an earthing fault.

Hi Drpps, thanks for. Reply, sorry I meant to mention as well that the rocker switch also doesn't do anything or the spotlights individually don't work either, it does sound like a simple earth fault somewhere from the comments so far, but just tricky trying to. Trace it as not sure where I'm looking
Thanks again!

 

[rod_vw]

As far as I am aware the interior lights are earth switched as @WelshGas says above but the earth (-ve) is supplied from the BCM (Body Control Module). Some of the interior lights fade off in certain circumstances and all courtesy lights are timed to extinguish after about 12 minutes if doors are left open etc. Without searching the wiring diagrams I don't know what/where the fuse arrangements are for the interior lights.
There are full dealer level current flow wiring diagrams available here if you are able to read such things. All of that data including all workshop manual sections are downloadable, I have all of the relevant ones for my T6 saved on a USB memory stick.

 

[Ian Reynolds]

Hi, did you fix this as I have the same issue?!

 

[WelshGas]

Hi, did you fix this as I have the same issue?!

Word of advice. If you don’t use the “Reply” button when replying to a post etc: then the OP , in this case @OllieCollieCali , does not get a Notification and may not see your post unless they constantly check the Thread.

 

[rod_vw]

If you need the diagrams the link is in my post above.

 

[Ian Reynolds]

If you need the diagrams the link is in my post above.

Hi, yes thanks, I started to look through them earlier. They take a bit of reading!
Its wierd as the 3 way roof light switch buttons illuminates at night, but none of the interior lights do, so whatever is feeding power is my next step, could be this dreaded J519 unit?!!?

 

[OllieCollieCali]

Hi, did you fix this as I have the same issue?!

Hi Ian,
They did start working again, but I am not sure why, I suspect I disturbed a wire somewhere and they started working, but I don't know how.
They now work for a while but then blow the fuse. I put it down to the roof light by the 3 way switch, as it seemed to happen if this was moved (the light fell down recently and they seemed to stop working then) I rewired the connections and it worked again for a short while, but still blows the fuse occasionally so I'm still chasing the fault.
So at the moment I haven't completely fixed this yet unfortunately.