awdinut

Quite awhile back I posted that I had bought a couple sets of illuminated door sills (normal wheelbase version) from Audi's Quattro GmbH German catalog. I have had them installed for sometime now, but only now got them functioning. With my point-and-shoot I was not able to take photos that have the various light sources balanced properly,but I have posted them anyway.

The problem I had was that Audi WAY over engineered these things. The instructions for installing them are 30 pages long !! Audi calls for dismantling the seats and much of the dash to attach the many wires in their wiring harness. The light source (I deduced from my research on Google) is a technology called Electro Luminecence and the EL panel in the sills are energized by an inverter ,one for each side of the car, that turns 12V DC into 110 AC.

I did things Audi's way on the first side I installed but the sills did not light up. Turns out Audi failed to tell me...and by the way I had obtained a copy of the instructions in English...that if you hook-up 12 V DC to the inverter with out having the inverter hooked-up to the sills the inverter gets fried. In my quest to trouble shoot the problem I bench 'tested' both inverters to check output...and fried the second inverter too.

Of course at that point I did not know what I had done, or even what those little boxes were supposed to do ,or what the light source for the system was. After some Googling I learned about EL and what happens to energized inverters with no load. I Googled a source for EL inverters and they told me what frequency and model I needed for the square inches involoved and for $60 I got a pair of them.

The whole matter became simple after that. The after market inverters had only one hot and one ground wire each to hook up, which were easily attached to the footwell light fixtures. That provides current to the sills under the same situations that Audi's complex system would have. NO difference in funtion at all...I could write the instructions for my install on a napkin !

The job of adapting the short rear sill to my long wheelbase A8 was simple. I cut a piece off of each of the original front sills I removed from my car and used those as a filler piece between the front and rear sills. The original joint between the two falls next to the B pillar between the two doors where it cant be seen...now theres another joint on eachside that cant be seen either.

Actually the short wheelbase sill is aesthetically more proper,IMO, than the one Audi uses for long wheelbase cars. If you look at the rear sill of an A8L you will see that the metal insert is quite off-center to the door opening and threshold...it extends further forward than it should by any logic. The SWB sill adapted to my LWB car centers the insert exactly with the textured part of the threshold, which is cenetred to the door opening.

So, I am quite pleased to have illuminated sills at last! They are always sort of a pleasant surprise when I open the door at night because I havent yet gotten used to having them. Exotic might be the best adjective I can think of for the look of them.

If anyone is interested in buying the other set my email is awdinut@hotmail.com

r3daction

That looks awesome! The last picture looks like something you'd see in an advert.

chazertis

driving gloves plus sunglasses? classic.

williebone

Is there a Link/Part# to this Item? Let us know the Cost and Time spent to complete the project. Laters,

Vicl

WOW! I want the same!

Where did you order those parts????
Can you share the info?

loshankov@yahoo.com

Vicl

I’ve just cleaned my spam and as I was doing it I noticed someone replied to me :-(
Can someone send the reply again???? I’ll be careful not to EMPTY my SPAM folder.

Thanks a lot!

r3daction

My wife chastised me a lil bit for buying driving gloves. I know I was right to do it.

awdinut

They are a Europe only Quattro GmbH EXCLUSIVE option. part # 4E0 071 300

Plus $60 for a pair of the correct output specs aftermarket inverters. A couple hours a side or less would cover the install time doing it my way with the aftermarket inverters instead of the disassemble-your-entire-car-system Audi designed. Its simple stuff...maybe Audi wanted to make it seem complex to justify the gargantuan price.

williebone

It sounds like it would've been easier to Tap into the Door Lights. You just may be the One and Only on this little Nice Mod my friend. Hats off to you for daring to be original. Laters,

awdinut

source,so having the front doors as a source would not illuminate the rear sill when only a rear door is opened. And the foot well light fixtures pop right out and were an easy source to solder into for power and ground because the inverter tucks away nicely above the footwell panel and the wires only have to be run about 8 inches from inverter to fixture. As opposed to running all the way through the door jam harnesss and fishing through the door etc, etc.

And,yes, this may be the only illuminated A8 sills in the US. If another forum member has them I hope they will chime in...I'd like to hear the story.