Fog lights come on when in reverse

So I noticed tonight that my fog lights come on when I put the car in reverse. But the headlight selector has to be in the on position manually. If headlights are at night with the switch in auto, the fog lights don't turn on with the car in reverse. Is this supposed to be some sort of safety feature or something? Seems like a computer error to me.

hmm, i think its actually some sort of weird feature. a fog light turns on in the direction i signal or whatever way i point the steering wheel. only does it when the headlights are in the "on" mode as mentioned earlier and not in auto mode. any other weird features on these passats?

Can't remember exactly what the name of this feature is but I experienced the same thing when I first brought my 15 Passat Highline home. I reversed out of garage to show a neighbour the new car, and he pointed to the fog light, wow a new car and already a burned out fog light ?? I believe the system is called " assisted parking lights". I think it's intended purpose was to help when parking near a curb/along curb, whatever tire is turned, only that fog light will come on. The head light switch is usually in the "daytime running position". This has been my experience and what I was told by the service manager at the dealership. Hope it helps...

You can turn these features off with vcds or by the settings screen on your cluster. I particularly like them, they were even more important before I got hid headlights. The cornering lights come on at <25mph when the wheel is turned or the turn signal is on.

These features are called adaptive cornering lights and (shockingly) fog lights on in reverse

If you have the seat memory you should also have a setting to lower your right mirror when you go into reverse to better see curbs.

Hiway blink (the 3 blinks if you just depress the turn signal stick) can be set to up to 5 with vcds. 3 isn't enough IMO

Seat heaters can be tweaked to retain their setting (w/ vcds)

Can change your seatbelt warning tone or change your country code to Australia to not have a tone until 25km/h but have the light the whole time. This eliminated the dinging on start up before you put on your seatbelt. (W/ vcds)

And my last one before you just look up tweaks on Google is "staging" it's where the needles will sweep high and back to 0 on initial key turn. (W/ vcds)

Long story short, get a vcds cable. It's fun to mess with and can be useful when you replace fuel filters or get a CEL.

Yea, I think I'll be getting VCDS when the oilfield picks back up and I start making more $$$