Intermittent interior light on 2012 Seat Ibiza Copa

[jswain90]

I own a 2012 Seat Ibiza Copa that we have owned since new. The car has been faultless in the time that we have owned it, but in the last couple of months the interior light has been a bit intermittent.

The interior light does not seem to turn on every time when unlocking the car remotely. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. There appears to be no consistency to when it works and when it doesn’t.

I have found that on the occasions when the light does not turn on and when unlocking the car, that as soon as I put the key in the ignition and turn the key to the auxiliary switch, the light then turns on. (For information I am usually turning the key to aux when I still have the door open).

If I then get out lock the car and then lock and unlock it straight away, quite often the interior light will turn on as expected. The light can then function as expected for a couple of days without a problem, but then all of a sudden it will go back to not turning on when unlocking the car.

The switch on the interior light is in the ‘door’ mode and as far as I can tell this switch seems to work fine.

This problem is getting me rather frustrated and so I wondered if anyone could point me in the right direction to fixing it.

Is it possible to look at the cause of the problem through VagCom diagnosis? I am guessing that vagcom will only find a problem if an error code has been logged on the ECU. Could any of the following be causing the problem?

1) Interior light switch pack
2) Micro switch in door latches
3) Ignition barrel aux
4) A bad earth somewhere
5) Is there an ECU somewhere that could be controlling the interior light.

Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks for your help.

James

 

[BF95]

Vagcom I wouldn't think would log a fault for that, I'd get your battery tested and alternator, if there's not enough battery voltage then maybe it won't light up to save power, I'd consider changing your bulbs they might be the same ones from factory, if you wanted you could remove the unit easily enough and but there's not a fat lot to see in there, is your boot lid the same does it not work when you open it?

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

 

[skyrocketeer]

Maybe just pop the bulb out, polish the contacts and put it back, sometimes that's enough to nudge an intermittent contact into working again.

Made any changes to anything electrical at all? New bulbs? stereo? Any work done on the engine or other systems? A service perhaps? Everything is interconnected these days..

 

[jswain90]

Good evening.

The car hasn't had any work done since the last service in March 2015. All was okay until around October last year.

Seems strange that the lights don't always come on when unlocking the car but when I put the key in the ignition (with door open) it then seems to kick them into action. I have checked the lights a few times tonight and it's all working fine, so it will be interesting to see if it still works in the morning!

I'll pop the cover off the light unit and check all the contacts and connections anyway, just seems strange.

BF95's suggestion of checking the alternator and battery seems like a good one I'll also check the boot light too. I'm assuming that this only works off the switch on the tailgate and is on a separate electrical circuit though?