Naughtie

Hey all,

I began getting a "Right Brake Light Out" message on my 2013. Some searches revealed this used to be a common error message on previous generations, but in my case the LED brake light on the lift gate is actually out.

Is there a common point of failure I should be looking at?

A couple of things:

The taillight module is fine. I've swapped the left and right modules and the fault remains on the right side -- i.e. the "bad" module lights up when I plug it in the the left-hand connector.

All of the other lights on this module work: turn signals, tail lights, and reverse lights.

This is a recently swapped-in (new) rest-of-world tail light (with amber turn signals) and it was working properly for at least a few weeks before this problem turned up. But again, it works when I swap positions.

Lastly, and I think this is significant, after I installed these tail lights, I began getting a "light out" message at the security checkpoint at work, where I have to pop open my lift gate for the guard to take a peek while I'm still in the car and stepping on the brake pedal. Seems very coincidental. It was a few weeks later this fault turned into a permanent "brake light out" message. I'm thinking there's a area under the roof liner where the lighting harness flexes when the lift gate is actuated, and I've got the roof liner removed, but am having trouble identifying that area.

The car is under CPO warranty but I want to confirm it's not something I screwed up with my tail light swap, and if it's easy, I'll just fix it. I don't know if the Audi shop would even realize I have different tail lights in there.

TREGinginCO

Did a wire get pinched somewhere?