Which generation of Golf do you have? Digital or analogue instrument display?
This might not be your issue but on later generation cars with an analogue instrument display, there’s a light sensor in the instrument display that detects poor, low level outside lighting conditions (e.g. if it’s cloudy and overcast, during - and when approaching - the hours of darkness, when entering a dimly lit tunnel or multi storey car park), the display automatically dims down, leaving just the needles illuminated. This is a prompt to switch your lights on so you can see and be seen. Once your lights are on, the dials on instrumentation display will illuminate. On cars where the rotary light switch has an ‘auto’ setting, leaving the lights set to ‘auto’ should eliminate the issue as the car automatically turns the lights on in poor lighting conditions.
