newer vw parking light wiring

I recently did a 2008 Passat with the smart key and noticed that according to Readyremote.com, "When triggering this wire, you may need to interrupt the headlight switch off wire, which is BLACK / YELLOW (+) at the VESCM, 16 pin plug (E), pin 16.". On that car, they parking lights appeared to work perfectly fine in all tests (ignition on, ignition off, after a long period of time, etc) so I did not connect the interrupt since it says "MAY need". Does anyone know why this is or even what happens that caused the note to be added? The reason I ask is that I'm doing an 09 Jetta this week that calls out the same thing.Kenny

Owner / Technician

KKD Garage LLC

Albany, NY 12205

Some thoughts. Feedback so needs to be isolated? Auto lights? Passat advisory if you're going into the roof linings:- Believe it or not, the sun visors and light fitting use "U" shaped springs holding flat nuts LOOSELY on refitting screw the machine (not self tapping)screws initially by hand or else you will loose the flat nuts and waste an hour trying to find a plastic insert and a self tapper that head matches the original

I looked at bulldogsecurity and it seems like maybe it is only if trying to get the lights to flash with remote start. My guess is that maybe they are DRL and will stay on when started, so you have to 'break' that wire by a relay in order to make them flash... which I always just do constantly on anyways. Kenny

Owner / Technician

KKD Garage LLC

Albany, NY 12205

offroadzj wrote: I recently did a 2008 Passat with the smart key and noticed that according to Readyremote.com, "When triggering this wire, you may need to interrupt the headlight switch off wire, which is BLACK / YELLOW (+) at the VESCM, 16 pin plug (E), pin 16.". On that car, they parking lights appeared to work perfectly fine in all tests (ignition on, ignition off, after a long period of time, etc) so I did not connect the interrupt since it says "MAY need". Does anyone know why this is or even what happens that caused the note to be added? The reason I ask is that I'm doing an 09 Jetta this week that calls out the same thing.

I have the same question.. I am going to be doing my 2012 Passat and 2012 Jetta very soon. They both say the same thing for the parking lights. After looking very close at the wiring diagram, I wonder if it would be possible to use the hazard lights in place of the parking lights? On the Passat the hazard lights are (-), so I don't see any reason it wouldn't work. What are your thoughts??

No problem, remember the hazards are used outside North America because no one else uses amber running lights we all have amber direction indicators front and rear.

Yes the relay is to break is needed, if you want the parking lights to flash, otherwise you don't need it for solid parking lights during remote start. Otherwise the DRL's will flash with parking lights in some cases.

Ok. Now onto a new question. This 2009 Jetta I just did called for parking lights at the VESCM as gray / YELLOW. I found the gray / YELLOW in the exact plug and pin location called out, but it would not test at all with lights. I tried multiple other wires and locations (kick panels, etc) and just could not seem to find the damn parking light wire. The only place I could not check was at the switch because I could not figure out how to get that darn panel off. There seemed to be a hidden bolt behind the switch which just would not pop out no matter what I tried. Any other input on how to connect the parking lights on this car?Kenny

Owner / Technician

KKD Garage LLC

Albany, NY 12205

Did you put +12v to the wire to test should be a trigger wire(for relay) for the (gray / YELLOW) VESCM, 16 pin plug (E), pin 1. Note:When triggering this wire for parking light flashing, you may need to interrupt the headlight switch off wire, which is BLACK / YELLOW (+) at the VESCM, 16 pin plug (E), pin 16.

I did try putting 12volts to it and it didn't seem to do anything (but I didn't have someone to watch the lights for me, so I could have just not seen them). My buddy wasn't too worried about it so next time we have it apart I can dig a little further. But if anyone knows, please let me know so I don't have to dig as much... hahaKenny

Owner / Technician

KKD Garage LLC

Albany, NY 12205

He got the car back from his parents while they are all away on vacation this week so I get to tear back into it. There are 2 issues I have to try to correct. 1) The immobilizer bypass was a PITA. They only had the full key (with remote) and with everything apart it was working 100%. But once everything was together it was maybe 25%. I narrowed it down to a single screw. If the screw was not installed it worked flawlessly. With the screw it rarely worked. There was no wire getting pinched or anything like that. After an hour or so of adjusting the loops (around the key and the cylinder) I finally had it working... or so I thought. Apparently it stopped working again. I explained that the valet key was the better key to use due to the signal type difference between the 2 remotes so I'll be swapping the keys and re-wrapping the cylinder. I would have done the 556u Euro install but the antenna wires didn't seem to exist. There was a large module directly above the cylinder that I'm assuming was the immobilizer module and there was no access to the factory antenna wires. Hopefully I'll get this working better. 2) I still have to figure out the parking lights. Worse comes to worse I will integrate the hazards, but I would rather get the parking lights working. Anyone have any insight as to getting the headlight switch out if need be? Any other ideas to locating the parking lights?Kenny

Owner / Technician

KKD Garage LLC

Albany, NY 12205