Dim rear lights

[bal]

Hi guys,

My brother was following me today and said that my driver side outer rear light is really dim with just the middle part of the brake light working.

Is this a new unit or is it repairable?

Few pics hopefully you can make it out





Thanks

Bal

[IanH755]

They aren't easily repairable unless you know what you're doing as an electrician or a gifted amateur sparky, sorry.

[bal]

They aren't easily repairable unless you know what you're doing as an electrician or a gifted amateur sparky, sorry.

Thanks Iain, looks like a good excuse to upgrade to the facelift lights

[IanH755]

I know it may seem obvious but have you tried unplugging/re-plugging them back in and giving them a little tap just incase it's a loose connection?

[GC1978]

They all fail eventually. My 09/10 car had the same issue on one side, and after about 6 months the other side went too.
I think the cluster is c.£60-£80 from memory actually not that expensive for audi given they are LED!

[discostu49]

sort of happened to me but mine died and another guy messaged me saying his had just went too,,,,I'm not sure why they go and at similar times???? but i took the light out which took all of 4 mins then i gave the terminals a wee scrape with a flat head screw driver gave a good blow to the unit made a wish also made sure all the wires were in and put it back in and its worked fine since ...give that a bash before you go all out.


i would love to have loaded a pic but for some unknown reason its telling me the files invalid

[Jim Haseltine]

LED clusters are seriously sensitive to the condition of the ground connection. With incandescents a bad ground can often be hidden by the lamp grounding through another part of the cluster, sometimes reverse feeding via another lamp filament (you must have seen old Fords and Vauxhalls where the brake lights flash along with the indicators) but LEDs can only flow current in one direction so they either work or they don't.

[bal]

sort of happened to me but mine died and another guy messaged me saying his had just went too,,,,I'm not sure why they go and at similar times???? but i took the light out which took all of 4 mins then i gave the terminals a wee scrape with a flat head screw driver gave a good blow to the unit made a wish also made sure all the wires were in and put it back in and its worked fine since ...give that a bash before you go all out.


i would love to have loaded a pic but for some unknown reason its telling me the files invalid

Thanks I will give this a go tomorrow.

I seem to get that issue with uploading photos too, I had to upload them to photo bucket

[bal]

I know it may seem obvious but have you tried unplugging/re-plugging them back in and giving them a little tap just incase it's a loose connection?

Not tried that yet, that's the plan tomorrow hopefully!

[tony091]

hi there
exactly the same happened to me !! and exactly the same side , no matter how much I tried when taking it out and testing all electric components the led lights always came on not as bright , in the end I bought a new unit , now its perfect , regards tony

[bal]

Well having taken it out and cleaned up all of the contacts it's still not working.

Does anyone know the best place to pick up facelift lights up from? Are they just dealer parts?

[rs6_sid]

I could be wrong but I thought euro car parts did list them

[IanH755]

They're made by Valeo rather than OEM and about £120-140 per light.

[Trev500]

Same happened to mine on the o/s, pissed about with connections etc but to no avail, replaced with TPS part now all good, seems strange it's always the o/s!?

[bal]

Thought I'd just post an update on this, I've finally replaced all the rear lights with the facelift ones which I managed to pick up some valeo ones from ECP.

Pics:
Before


Half way:


After: