hughmungus

New to the forum, back to Audi from many years with BMW and lots of things to ask but I will do them one at a time.

First annoying thing, the previous owner must have had spoons for hands as he managed to mess up changing the rear licence plate so bad the screw are well and truly stuck in so i cant take the cover off to replace the bulb with led's.

My question is apart from drilling the screw out which will be very hard in such a confined space is there a way to remove the entire strip it is housed in that contains the boot (trunk) release switch to allow me to remove the screw away from the car.

MainelyA8

You can remove the trunk lid liner, which will gain you access to the innards of the trunk switch & the bolts holding the entire assembly in. I did this back in Feb (there should be a post on it somewhere) for the exact same reason, but it was a huge pain. One of my bulb housing screws was stripped as well, and I was unable to get it out no matter what I tried, even after I removed the entire assembly. I ended up JB Welding the housing cover back on after replacing them with LED units from ECS Tuning. I wouldn't recommend it over extracting the screw if you can obviously.

Also wouldn't recommend the LED units from ECS. They didn't even make it a year before one side burned out.

TSHong

Not sure exactly but are you trying to replace the tag light bulbs with LED's? If so my screws were striped as well. It's a bad angle to loosen or tighten the screw.

I busted the light assembly off and used some needle nosed pliers and unscrewed it. Since I ordered whole LED assemblies, no harm done by busting it out. I replaced mine with a hex head instead of the phillips head. Just make sure you get stainless M6 x1.0 and 10mm long or they will corrode with water and chemicals.

hughmungus

Thanks guys, I didn't want to start messing with screws so close to body work in I had been able to just take off the plastics strip that they are part of.
Taking your advice I'll attempt to prize them out and suck it up if it goes wrong.

Thanks again, and i will give you a wave TS when we fly into Atlanta on Weds on our way to Cancun. 🛫

TSHong

I would buy some replacement screw of your choice before I start. And hope you have a smooth layover here at Hartsfield. A short flight from here to Cancun. I had lots of fun there.