AudiWorld Project Allroad Part 2: Lighting the way

With all of the LED lighting on the exterior of our 2014 allroad, we wanted to have the rest of the car match. We especially noticed that the front indicators seemed really old fashioned compared to the rear LEDs. At the same time, the interior was largely lit by old school incandescent bulbs as well. While none of this is really a detriment, we wanted to have a closer look at some of the LED replacement kits that are available.

We contacted deAutoLED who made a full recommendation to outfit our entire car. There are a LOT of lights inside an allroad, but swapping over the old bulbs for the new LEDS was really easy, and only required using an actual tool for one location, which is where we’ll start.

Nestled inside the way too small eyeglassholder that we have never found a good use for, there is a single t25 head screw, that once removed allows the whole assembly to drop down, so you can replace the 2 wedge style reading light bulbs with LEDs.  Once you get it back in place, you can then gently pry the cover off of the dome lights, and swap out the old festoon bulbs for the LEDs from the kit. This alone is a huge upgrade from original, but we’re just getting started.

The rest of the bulbs we would replace require only an interior panel tool to replace, as their housing pop and in. The rear seat overhead lights are wedge style bulbs, and complete the overhead lighting perfectly. Each footwell has a single LED light that is moderatly tricky to replace, but not difficult. These are replaced by insanely bright LEDs with 6 leds each. These are so bright that they even show up in daylight. At night the car is lit up incredibly brightly.

Having nice bright light in the trunk is key, and in the case of the allroad, there are 3 locations – one on each side, and one on the hatch. At night with the trunk open, you could find a dropped contact lens thanks to the light these things emit.

Each door has 2 positions for LED upgrades – the puddle lights, and the red warning lights. The standard wedge bulbs are swapped out for LED units which emit an incredibly bright light.

Moving to the exterior of the car, as we mentioned before our car already has the LED lighting package, yet has (had) incandescent reverse and front turn signal lights. No more, as the deAutoLED kit we received replaces both with insanely bright LED units. In the case of the reverse lights, it’s actually possible to see the behind while reversing! And with the front signal lights, we now have the immediate on/off to match the rear indicators, instead of the longer dwell of the incandescent lights. As an added bonus, they are brighter, so they are able to be seen over the DRL lights which we coded to remain on with indicator.

After upgrading our allroad’s lighing to all LED, we now have a car that feels more coherent. The only thing missing is upgrading the fog light bulbs to LED.. Stay tuned!