turbo97se

Wanted to say thanks to all the guys hat posted here. I just went through this. The only thing I would add to those that wired directly from the LED board to the metal power and grounds is to provide strain relief for the wires that are soldered on to the LED board. Audi deigned it with prongs likely for two reasons: ease of assembly and provide strain relief for the wires to the LED board so that vibrations would not snap the wires off at the wire to board interface. I drilled a small hole in the plastic and zip-tied the LED board side of the wire to it. Essentially, you don't want to fix one issue and create another

Here are some pictures:



I also secured the ground wire and power wire (not shown in the photo) so that they wouldn't wiggle around and get cut and short out. That would not be good



Cheers!

avflyer

Been having the intermittent warning for breaklight/turning signal (right side) for months. Recently brought the car in for service and asked them to also look at the warning (which luckily appeared while the car was in ... this time). This is a 2006 A6 Quatro 3.2L. Great machine.

i was told that I would be looking at replacing the entire assembly for about $350. That's when I came here.

THANK YOU to all.

I skipped worrying about an intermittent wiring problem or LED issue once I found the discussions regarding how the power is transferred inside the assembly from the rear portion to the front lens (LED section). From an engineering standpoint, I am certain that Audi had reasons to design the elaborate pin and pressure contact thing but to me a simple and reliable lock connector would seem to have done the trick.

Took me a while to find the assembly release screw in that I figured it was somewhere in the right side section behind the jack holder. After catching a video I did discover the black plastic cover much higher and inside than I would have suspected. Removed the plug, used a flathead and began unscrewing. The only issue with the design here is that the securing plastic bolt thing never fully extends through the hole when fully loose. Mine fell between the boot lining and the frame. Don't fret, taking out the jack and using a flashlight found the thingy easily without any difficulty in recovering it.

The lens assembly pulled out easily on my unit. I did not un-clip the power connection. I simply un-clipped the outer assembly which was much easier.

Expecting to find a broken stands on front part (the red plastic) (as others have noted), I was most surprised that both of my stand contacts where in perfect shape. So instead I wiped down the connection tips coming on the front assembly. I also pulled up the contacts on the back assembly (grey plastic).

So we will see if this solves my issues. I will report back.

Mr. Bizzle

I'll be doing this procedure this weekend, along with my oil & filter, air filter, cabin air filter, and fuel filter(Big day!). My intermittent light problem started about 3 weeks ago.

I'm looking at purchasing these as a replacement: Spyder® ALT-YD-AA605-LBLED-RS (5079619) - Red/Smoke Light Bar Style LED Tail Lights

Trying to put it off as long as I can though, as I don't quite have the $$ right now. That's why I'll try cleaning up the contacts first.

avflyer

So far so good for me. Frankly, if you look at the pictures in the threads above mine, it easy to figure how/why this issue comes up. It IMHO has less to do with temperature/humidity and more to do with motion and ride impact. If you will, it is essentially like a spring-loaded battery contact like in a flashlight. If you bang on it, the light goes on or off. While the red plastic outer section is firmly clamped to the grey back section (or so it feels), I suppose that there is enough wiggle room for the contact to become dicey. Again, a direct wire and clamp would eliminate this elaborate pressure contact system but hey.

Certainly you can buy replacement assemblies if they bring you more joy or styling. For me, I just wanted the beeping to stop (as well as prevent a ticket for a non-functional turn signal/break lamp). Frankly once I played around with it, I quickly got the full picture as to the malfunction, the eradicate nature of it, and an ultimate (hopefully) solution.

avflyer

And then it came back on (for a short time) the other day.

I have to admit that I thought my fixes would solve the intermittent contact issue. But there may be more to it. That said, today we are fine so far. Go figure.

Sharonwilliams925

I checked the bulb, that wasn't the issue, was told it was the circuit board, checked that, that wasn't the issue, read something online that suggested disconnect the battery cable for about ten minutes for it to reset itself and believe it or not it worked. Awesome, no cost.

Trekie

I had this same issue with the right tail light, reverse light and fog light warnings. I saw a very small brown spot on the plastic around the ground wire pin of the bulb holder. Bent the pin and the problem went away for a couple of months.
The issue came back with a vengeance on Sunday. I decided to replace the entire assembly because I didn't want to modify the wiring of the vehicle. Problem solved.
Thanks to everyone that contributed to this thread, its been a lot of help to me.

schalliol

A bummer to have to replace it, but at least it's easy to swap and not very expensive relative to other repairs

JenieceL21

Did this happen to fix your problem?

emmm

It did, for a while. Ended up replacing the whole unit later on, though.