veloman08

My right side light has developed problems. I have the typical signs of burning on the plug and receptical. I am just amazed that Audi has ignored this problem so long. I am in the process of changing the ground wiring.

veloman08

Teed into brown wire going to plug and used the screw and washer method to connect to the lamp earth trace. Everything OK now. Will do the left side when troubles arise or the weather is cooler. It's hard to spend any time in my garage when temperature is 105 or better.

TT4LEE

I had intermittent light warnings on the dash. I drove behind the car and also noticed the turn signals were not very bright. I followed the advice in the video - its very good. The only difference was I grounded the lights to the inside of the car - there are dedicated ground terminals on both sides near the lights.

Just remove the trunk cover (folding bit), then remove the styrofoam (lift out), then remove the trunk rear trim (pull up). There are two ground posts painted red on either side that will stay dry). Be sure to pull the wires through the wire harness rubber grommets behind the lights, a previous owner had run a different wire through the opening that is used to screw the lights in tight and the wire was crushed :-(

marquesalan

I am having the same corrosion issues. I had the right side bulb holder and wire harness replaced. It's just starting on my left side so I am going to try to just clean it for now. I have the Carista car app and it says my tail lamp voltage is set to 13.2. I can lower it to any voltage down to 12.3. Do you think this would help slow down the issue or possibly completely eliminate it. I will have to set it and see how much dimmer it makes my brake lights. I do not want to get rear ended either.

marquesalan

I was told if your bulb burns out like mine did it can melt the connectors which it did. They recommended I change out the bulbs every couple years so a bulb blowing could be avoided. I am going to try to use some dielectric grease after cleaning the contacts and lowering the voltage to 12.3 from 13.2 to see if that helps.

Atlas Del Mar

Same problem.

Going to look into it later today.

Best

phanttom_edm

I had the same issue in 2019. My local Audi tuning shop was very familiar with this issue. They were able to get new ends and fix the wiring for $100cdn at the time.

rlo

Hoping to build off this thread on the rear tail lamps ground issue. I have a 2008 TT and may have the same ground issue on the rear right side. First question: based on my issue description below, if I add the ground wire based on this thread instructions, will I fix the issue? Or do I have another issue?
Second question: if I have a bad ground, why am I only having issues with the brake lights and not the reverse and turn signal lights?

I already had the rear left side fixed by the dealership a few years ago. The left side had the rear light assembly and harness ground pin was replaced. The ground wire was not replaced so I may have a future issue as the ground over heat issue will still be an issue, but for now the left side works just fine.

Here's my summary of issue on the right rear side and first time having this issue 100% each key on. Around May 2022, the right rear side would intermittently have failure messages stating right rear brake light error on my driver display. Now September 2022, error message is 100% each time I key on. I checked the harness connections and the ground male and female connector have this overheat issue. All lights work (e.g. reverse light, turn signal) except the following: brake light high intensity light and night time low intensity light when headlamp is turned on. Therefore, the right tail lamp is dark in the evenings when head lamp is turned on. But I have turn signal and reverse light work as typical. Other notes: changed new bulbs on the two brake lights and still have the error message and brake lights (high and low intensity does not work).

rlo

Update on adding the secondary ground wire for the LH/RH tail light assembly. The error message is gone and brake lights work again!!!



Notes:
I had to re-do the longer ground wires since I needed approx. 32 inches in length for each side. The shorter ground wire could get reduced to 6 inches, but I left it at 12 inches.
Overall, this took almost 3 hours for a first timer. But I believe this could be installed around 1.5 hours by someone that has all the parts, tools, and knowledge on how to complete the install.