jeshaw70

I found the small plug - I was looking for a black plastic plug based on pictures I had seen, but it was wrapped in foam, as was the larger red plug. On to building the harness...

jeshaw70

I built my wiring harness and I tried to test it out, but I received faults for the TPMS and stabilization controls and the lights on my tester didn't respond. I haven't had the programming done yet and I'm hoping that's why. Is this the expected behavior? Is there a way for me to test out my harness without the programming? I double-checked everything against the wiring diagrams and checked the continuity of my splices, but I'd feel better knowing the lights actually work. If there's no way for me to test it any further, I'm going to have to assume my harness is good and I'll take it over to the dealer to get the programming done.

woodepic

yup that’s exactly as expected without programming. Other than checking with the diagrams, I don't know of any other way to test it without programming.

jeshaw70

Thanks - I'll take it over next week. I really appreciate all of the support you're providing here. I took your advice and learned to solder. Made for a much more streamlined installation as well as being more solid.

woodepic

Awesome, glad to hear!

jeshaw70

At long last, I've finished building a harness, installing the hitch, wiring, and module, and getting it programmed. I opted to have the dealer program it for me - they charged me $140 for labor, which seemed fair, and which was simpler and cheaper than buying a vagcom cable and which gave me peace of mind knowing that it was done correctly. I plugged in a $3 4-flat tester from Harbor Freight and everything seems to work - the lights on the tester light when they should, I see the extra turn signal indicator on the dash, and I see the image of a trailer on the backup camera overlay. I don't see a trailer on the screen when I hit the 'Car' button, but I don't have an S-line, so I don't have the drive mode selector, so maybe that's why. All that's left is to try towing an actual trailer

Overall, I'm extremely happy with how everything turned out - I've included some pics of what I think is a pretty slick install. The DrawTite hitch doesn't really have a good place to mount the outlet, so I ended up mounting it to a piece of square aluminum tubing and strapping that to the hitch with stainless steel hose clamps. Once it was mounted, I bent the bracket backward so that it faces downward, similar to the factory hitch. As a bonus, it fits completely behind the removable faceplate, which makes for a super-clean look. I only pull my boat a few times a year, so the inconvenience of removing the faceplate is worth it to me for the look, as well as the benefit of having the outlets protected from the slush and salt here in the northeast.

Thanks to woodepic for the inspiration and advice - without this thread, I probably would have installed a third-party light controller and missed out on the benefits of the factory components.






You can see the aluminum tubing and one of the hose clamps in the top left corner.

woodepic

That looks awesome, well done!

Also, yes, the image of the trailer only shows up in the drive select screen, so you're correct — that's why you don't see it.

Glad to hear everything worked out for you!

Warhead

More pictures of your mounting se up for the trailer plug?

jeshaw70

Sorry I took so long to reply. I took some more photos, but there's not much space which makes it really hard to get a good shot. I'll do my best to describe what I did, although it was a bit of trial and error, so I don't remember all of the details.

I used a piece of 1" square aluminum tubing from Lowes, about 6" long, and cut it at 45 degrees at one end to fit up against the angled support piece on the DrawTite hitch. I used gutter screws to attach the outlet bracket to the tubing and then attached the outlet to the bracket with the provided screws. After that, I put 2 stainless steel hose clamps around the main hitch tube and the aluminum tube with a small strip of rubber in between to keep things from sliding. I think they were 4" clamps, but they may have been 5" - I don't remember for sure. I thought about screwing through the clamps into the tubing to make sure they didn't slip off, but they don't seem to be going anywhere. After tightening the clamps down, I gently pushed on the bottom of the outlet to bend the bracket back and upward until it was completely inside of the fascia.

Hope that helps and good luck if you haven't already done yours.

This is the bracket for the Hopkins 8482 outlet. It's upside down from how I mounted it:


Here's a shot from the side so you can see how far up it's recessed:


This is a shot from the right side, which is the end that's angled to fit against the hitch support. The white screw is the gutter screw I used to attach the bracket to the tubing. I happened to have a couple laying around:

DWAS

I am at Audi Central Houston and they are charging me $540 to code the OEM trailer package I installed myself. This includes recalibration of the side assist system.
clearly I am feeling a little violated.