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Just wanted to post little tease of blackline taillight. I wanted to finish first then post entire process, but couldn't wait to share the information.
So to sum up everything, if you do not want to read all the process, I have change the US tail light sequence to ECE tail light sequence then received the blackline tail light for Q7 4M.
=> My knowledge of coding / electrical wiring / mechanical installation might not be correct nor right. Please use your own discretion to follow any of the steps.
=> I am not promoting any companies or products that are mentioned in this thread.
=> Sorry about my English, I am an immigrant from Korea.
1. I am planning on taking my car to Korea when I move in couple of month. The problem that I was facing was the turn signal color. Korea follows ECE laws in terms of turn signal color: Only amber allowed. Unfortunately the Q7 i purchased in US has red color turn signal. So I had to change the color from red to amber. There are couple of companies in Korea who will open the tail light and change the LED to amber from red, I did not want to take chance of leaking water later on. So I researched around and decided to give VCP cable a chance.
2. The process took long time because of shipping time from Europe. I ordered VCP cable from one of the vendor in Germany in first week of December. Being Christmas season and DHL's SLOW delivery, I received the VCP cable in Mid January. You can find more information about VCP coding in this forum. VCP coding is more powerful than OBDeleven in my understanding and there is chance of bricking your car modules if you use it wrong. But basic coding / adaptation is similar to OBDeleven. But VCP has built in functions call ZDC. Basically people or VCP staff, not sure either way, will upload ZDC files on the VCP software for all the people who has VCP. There are lots of different ZDC files for different cars. For example, there is ZDC file for turning of Auto Stop / Start function. I cannot really tell you how it works but it works.
- I ordered VCP cable from VCP Forum Shop. Markus, I think he is the owner, was very helpful in this process and has superior follow ups and support. Also, you get access to vcp-forum once you purchase the cable module, which you will get many different information about the cable.
3. I downloaded ZDC file call "q7nf_bcm2_8w0907064bh,zdc". Description says BCM2 configurator for Q7 4M. And when I opened the ZDC in VCP software, I saw two options: REAR_LAMPS_ECE & REAR_LAMPS_USA. All I had to do was to upload the REAR_LAMPS_ECE ZDC to BCM2 (Module 46), and my tail light sequence was changed to ECE sequence. I did check the long code after uploading the ZDC files but there was no changes. So I am not sure if you can use other coding method such as RossTech or OBDEleven. If you do follow this same path, you will have to upload all the PARTS from PART1_REAR_LAMPS_ECE to PART7_REAR_LAMPS_ECE. When I was uploading each PART to Module 46, I did receive some errors saying it was not uploaded correctly. But I just clicked upload again, and it was uploaded successfully. Not sure why it was showing error but it worked out. If you Only want ECE Sequence tail lights, you can stop here.
=== I will post a video showing ECE sequence tonight.
4. So after making sure everything is ok, I waited few more days to find out if anything else can go wrong. There were no problems actually, no error or anything. So I went on Ebay to order the Black line tail lights. I could ordered just European tail light with amber turn signal but blackline ones look so much better. There are lots of Ebay sellers who are selling the blackline tail lights. Prices are also varies from $600 ~ $900 I believe. I wanted to save money and ordered from cheaper vendor who uses DHL parcel. DHL parcel takes so long to ship from Germany to US, at least the west coast here in California. It took little more than 4 weeks to receive my tail lights. And I felt like it was the longest 4 weeks I ever waited my life. But at least it arrived finally.
This is how far I have gotten. We just got back from Yosemite trip, so I am waiting to wash my dirty car to install the tail light. Tail light came with adapter from 4 pins to 5 pins because we do not have "Sweeping" turn signal.
My future plan is to install the tail light without the "Sweeping" Turn Signal first, which hopefully happens tonight or at the latest tomorrow morning.
Purchase electrical cable and Audi harness pins to wire from BCM2 (J393) to the tail light for the "Sweeping" Turn Signal. Only one wire is missing from US cars for the "Sweeping" effect from J393 to each tail light. And hopefully coding after that will make the blackline tail light to sweep.
If you look at the image below, wiring diagram for 8SK which is Sequential Turn Signals, US car is missing Harness T17f pin 11 (Green/White) wire to tail lights. Which goes from pin 11 of J393 to each tail lights.
Does anybody know where I can get electrical wires and Audi OEM pins for J393 harness? I found a few places online but if anybody has recommendation it will be awesome.
I know this thread isn't much at this moment, but hopefully people who are wanting to change their US tail lights to ECE tail lights can get some information.
Just wanted to post little tease of blackline taillight. I wanted to finish first then post entire process, but couldn't wait to share the information.
So to sum up everything, if you do not want to read all the process, I have change the US tail light sequence to ECE tail light sequence then received the blackline tail light for Q7 4M.
=> My knowledge of coding / electrical wiring / mechanical installation might not be correct nor right. Please use your own discretion to follow any of the steps.
=> I am not promoting any companies or products that are mentioned in this thread.
=> Sorry about my English, I am an immigrant from Korea.
1. I am planning on taking my car to Korea when I move in couple of month. The problem that I was facing was the turn signal color. Korea follows ECE laws in terms of turn signal color: Only amber allowed. Unfortunately the Q7 i purchased in US has red color turn signal. So I had to change the color from red to amber. There are couple of companies in Korea who will open the tail light and change the LED to amber from red, I did not want to take chance of leaking water later on. So I researched around and decided to give VCP cable a chance.
2. The process took long time because of shipping time from Europe. I ordered VCP cable from one of the vendor in Germany in first week of December. Being Christmas season and DHL's SLOW delivery, I received the VCP cable in Mid January. You can find more information about VCP coding in this forum. VCP coding is more powerful than OBDeleven in my understanding and there is chance of bricking your car modules if you use it wrong. But basic coding / adaptation is similar to OBDeleven. But VCP has built in functions call ZDC. Basically people or VCP staff, not sure either way, will upload ZDC files on the VCP software for all the people who has VCP. There are lots of different ZDC files for different cars. For example, there is ZDC file for turning of Auto Stop / Start function. I cannot really tell you how it works but it works.
- I ordered VCP cable from VCP Forum Shop. Markus, I think he is the owner, was very helpful in this process and has superior follow ups and support. Also, you get access to vcp-forum once you purchase the cable module, which you will get many different information about the cable.
3. I downloaded ZDC file call "q7nf_bcm2_8w0907064bh,zdc". Description says BCM2 configurator for Q7 4M. And when I opened the ZDC in VCP software, I saw two options: REAR_LAMPS_ECE & REAR_LAMPS_USA. All I had to do was to upload the REAR_LAMPS_ECE ZDC to BCM2 (Module 46), and my tail light sequence was changed to ECE sequence. I did check the long code after uploading the ZDC files but there was no changes. So I am not sure if you can use other coding method such as RossTech or OBDEleven. If you do follow this same path, you will have to upload all the PARTS from PART1_REAR_LAMPS_ECE to PART7_REAR_LAMPS_ECE. When I was uploading each PART to Module 46, I did receive some errors saying it was not uploaded correctly. But I just clicked upload again, and it was uploaded successfully. Not sure why it was showing error but it worked out. If you Only want ECE Sequence tail lights, you can stop here.
=== I will post a video showing ECE sequence tonight.
4. So after making sure everything is ok, I waited few more days to find out if anything else can go wrong. There were no problems actually, no error or anything. So I went on Ebay to order the Black line tail lights. I could ordered just European tail light with amber turn signal but blackline ones look so much better. There are lots of Ebay sellers who are selling the blackline tail lights. Prices are also varies from $600 ~ $900 I believe. I wanted to save money and ordered from cheaper vendor who uses DHL parcel. DHL parcel takes so long to ship from Germany to US, at least the west coast here in California. It took little more than 4 weeks to receive my tail lights. And I felt like it was the longest 4 weeks I ever waited my life. But at least it arrived finally.
This is how far I have gotten. We just got back from Yosemite trip, so I am waiting to wash my dirty car to install the tail light. Tail light came with adapter from 4 pins to 5 pins because we do not have "Sweeping" turn signal.
My future plan is to install the tail light without the "Sweeping" Turn Signal first, which hopefully happens tonight or at the latest tomorrow morning.
Purchase electrical cable and Audi harness pins to wire from BCM2 (J393) to the tail light for the "Sweeping" Turn Signal. Only one wire is missing from US cars for the "Sweeping" effect from J393 to each tail light. And hopefully coding after that will make the blackline tail light to sweep.
If you look at the image below, wiring diagram for 8SK which is Sequential Turn Signals, US car is missing Harness T17f pin 11 (Green/White) wire to tail lights. Which goes from pin 11 of J393 to each tail lights.
Does anybody know where I can get electrical wires and Audi OEM pins for J393 harness? I found a few places online but if anybody has recommendation it will be awesome.
I know this thread isn't much at this moment, but hopefully people who are wanting to change their US tail lights to ECE tail lights can get some information.
I paid short subscription from Erwin Audi Europe. They have all the technical documents online if you pay for it.
Ah ok! Forgot about that - have used a few times also.
I have done the same as you and fitted Blackline lights but want the dynamic indicator also .....
Ah ok! Forgot about that - have used a few times also.
I have done the same as you and fitted Blackline lights but want the dynamic indicator also .....
They look so good! My car is Ink Jet Blue. Hope they look good as yours.
As far as Dynamic indicators go, hopefully adding extra wire and coding will work. I just need to find right pin to purchase for the harness.
It's a shame that Audi doesn't make a light that complies with the world market with traveling Amber black line lights. The red cheap junk that they have in the USA is an embarrassment.
It's a shame that Audi doesn't make a light that complies with the world market with traveling Amber black line lights. The red cheap junk that they have in the USA is an embarrassment.
It is a shame. So much better with amber lights anyway. I think Amber is ok in USA now right? I don't understand why they would make two different tail lights.
It is a shame. So much better with amber lights anyway. I think Amber is ok in USA now right? I don't understand why they would make two different tail lights.
Amber has always been legal in the USA and you have to be an idiot government DOT employee not to have followed the rest of the world and made amber only at the rear compulsory.
The travelling portion is very slick but does not conform to US requirements because when the sequence starts the illuminated area is not large enough. This could easily be rectified by starting the sequence with 3 lights on and then travelling the rest or by designing a system that conforms by increasing the size of the segments.
I, like numerous others, prefer the additional recognizability of amber and the additional safety it provides.
The only other reason that I can think of is that using turn signals in the USA is yet another law that is not enforced and drivers here are too self centered to think that indicating their intended direction change is superfluous.
02-13-2017, 10:43 AM
Blackline Taillight in US
