today's project: led fog light trim, where to tap switched power?

I ordered up this fog light trim that has LEDs from amazon and installed today... required a bit of triming of the lower center grill but came out alright. The wiring has been secured below and brought up near the drivers side headlight. Three wires, power, ground, headlight trigger that reduces brightness 50%. Ground and the headlight 50% wire are easy. Where to get the power? First thought was to tap into the DRL light but I dont want the incandescent bulbs in the headlight housings on and if I pull them it will throw an bulb out error on the dash. Any creative ideas where to get switched power?

I ran my main trigger wire from an add a fuse in the main dash fuse panel that was only powered after key on. With an automatic/DSG you have a rubber plug for the clutch pedal in the fire wall, a great place to run the wire through. I ran the actual power wire to the hot bus under the cover in the eng compartment, there are a couple of heavy gage wires there that have a nut that can just be loosened and add the power wire for the lights. It has a fuse so it's protected. I also had a dimmer trigger wire option so I used the fog light power wire to trigger it to dim, figured any time the fogs are on the lower DRL lights could be dim.



You can use VCDS to set the DRL option up in the mfd, this allows you to turn the main drls off/or on if you want from the mfd. If you switch you main drls to LED bulbs, they go well together.

Herkguy said:

I ran my main trigger wire from an add a fuse in the main dash fuse panel that was only powered after key on. With an automatic/DSG you have a rubber plug for the clutch pedal in the fire wall, a great place to run the wire through. I ran the actual power wire to the hot bus under the cover in the eng compartment, there are a couple of heavy gage wires there that have a nut that can just be loosened and add the power wire for the lights. It has a fuse so it's protected. I also had a dimmer trigger wire option so I used the fog light power wire to trigger it to dim, figured any time the fogs are on the lower DRL lights could be dim.

Click to expand...

Thanks! I have HIDs in the low beams so I can get to the headlight wire easy enough, had to do it for the install so that covers the trigger for the reduction of brightness. I still might trade out the headlights for something else but am not going to spend $2k+ to get it done... if I could find something in the $500-$600 range I would probably do it. The ground is easy. Where exactly is the power bus you found? Do you have a link to the LED bulbs used in the stock location?

Here is the link for the bulbs
http://deautokey.com/product/b7-pas...ning-lights-kit-crisp-bright-white-error-free

Zippy has a thread on here also about another led DRL bulb from NAPA for $28
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=431958

Both are just a swap and are error free, no BOW

In my picture above, look on the right side, the red wire is the main power wire and it follows the other black wrapped wire under the black cover on the right side. Just pop the black cover off the junction box on the right side of the eng bay and you will see a couple of heavy red wires that are attached to the box with small nuts on studs. No cutting or splicing required. If you need a better photo let me know, I can get one.

I grounded it using the bolt in the photo at the base of the air box. Just visible.

OP
Did you get them working?
Pics please

Love these fog light trim pieces!! Awesome to see you found them on Amazon. I've been contemplating these along with the Audi style headlights for my '13. The 2 LED ribbons on as DRLs would look sahweet!

Could you provide a link to the trim pieces on Amazon? I'm not finding them for some reason.

EDIT: I did find some. However, there were a couple of different sellers. iJDMTOY is one and has only one 5-star review. GAO is another and one review says the lights aren't very bright.