Been asked to surce and fir new headlights to an 08 A4, he wants the ones with the LED strip
at the bottom. Plenty on eBay at various prices but I assume varying quality to, and almost
certainly far eastern imports.

Has anyone done this and can recommend a supplier ?

Can you not just dismatle the standard unit and add one of the flexible strips to it. Might be cheaper and retain the quality of the original audi units.

Maplin strip light and some glue sounds like a plan

Point out to him that it just looks a bit rubbish on cars that were not sold with them.. and even so its a bit ghey...

Fit some LED sidelight bulbs instead!?

I'd advise doing some reading before going ahead with this.

I've looked into doing it on my 2008 A6, and is not as easy as it sounds. For example:

1. Bulbs in the LED headlights are DS3 rather than DS2 in the pre-LED
2. DS3 bulbs won't work with the DS2 ballast, so you have to change them too
3. DS3 ballast isn't recognised by the early revision lighting control ECU, so that needs changing
4. Later cars had their indicators in the wing mirrors rather than the wings, so the signal comes from the door ECU and not the lighting control. ie if you swap over you'll have no side repeaters unless you botch a wire between the door and the front wing

The trick on A6's is to get the lights from the earlier RS6 which pre-date the cooking models. They had 12 LEDs rather than the usual 6, but used a D2S bulb so they're compatible with the existing systems. The only thing to be aware of is that lighting controllers earlier than revision K don't support the LEDs (ie they won't dim when the indicators are on, which is a legal requirement), and later than revision K only work with D3S ballast. That is, of course, if you can find a pair of RS6 headlights without paying the £1k that Audi want for a brand new pair.

Now, I've no idea how much of this information also relates to the A4. You'd think Audi would use the same ancillary ECUs across the range, but I don't know that for sure. The point of this post is to show that it may not be as simple as you think!

Chris

I would think several times prior to changing anything electric on an Audi. I cannot tell you the problems it caused by merely adding a trailer module to the indicator system, and adding an aftermarket radio. It is NOT worth the effort and can cause all sorts of computer problems with the car's systems. Not the engine systems, however; just everything else. I lost about $1000 on the aftermarket radio fiasco, which gives you an idea of how serious this can turn.

[Edited on 20/3/12 by RK]