[s-cars] A6 tailight

[Tony Curran]

Er Bill,

The C4 ECU could detect failed bulbs by measuring the current flow when
lights are on or failed. I have a permanent reminder cause I changed the
center brake light bar incandescent bulbs with LEDs and now have the brake
light fail warning on all the time. To fix, one has to place a resistor
across the 12VDC to mimic the load an incandescent bulb would apply.

Hi powered LEDs would actually draw more than an 8 Watts (C4 brake bulb). So
there is a current threshold detector but probably higher than the C4
version. The ECU has to be a lot smarter as the LED could possibly fail in a
short circuit mode which incandescent bulbs cannot (think about it)!!!

Cheers,

Tony
96 S6

-----Original Message-----
From: s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com
[mailto:s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com] On Behalf Of Bill Mahoney
Sent: January-28-13 6:19 PM
To: s-car-list at audifans.com
Subject: Re: [s-cars] A6 tailight

My C6 had a taillight warning issue some time ago.
I don't know how the C5's are but on the C6, I removed the tail  lamp
assembly, then removed the back panel of the lamp assembly which contains
all of the bulbs and the power connector.
The '07 C6 lamp assembly has a row of LEDs on the top that has power
supplied by the power via this back panel.  There are two contact points
within the lamp assembly that need to make contact with two metal points on
the back panel in order to send power to the LED's.
Anyway, what I'm leading up to is to check and clean all the connections
within the lamp assembly including removing, cleaning and reinstalling all
the bulbs.
Dunno if they had it in '05, but nowadays there are computers within the car
that measure current.  Any change in voltage is immediately reported to
Inglestadt where they decide whether or not to turn out your tail light
completely.   Not really, but they do monitor the current.
My .02
HTH
Good luck!
Bill ~ gimme an Audi that needs no work~ M


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