Improve the light in your Golf's cargo area.

Like many of you, I need a brighter light in the cargo area of my '03 Golf. The stock light just doesn't work if something's blocking it.

I've seen all kinds of mods for Jetta & Passat owners who've added LED lights to the trunks of their cars. I thought there has to be some way to do ours.

There is!

First, start with a 2' (60cm) bar or rod of some sort. I had an aluminum rod so that's what I used. Then, mount your LED strip(s) to it. Secure the rod/LED assembly to the bottom of the package shelf (at the back). Run your power wires off to the right front of the package shelf.

Zip-ties are the only way to go here as far as I know. Tape won't work, it won't survive the heat. I haven't permanently secured the wire to the bottom of the package shelf, right now it's held in place by masking tape. I suspect the hook-side of Velcro might work. Possibly glue of some sort too. At any rate, I don't have much desire to drill any more holes in the shelf.

Tap in to the existing cargo light wiring. I used insulation displacement connectors. Red/blue is positive, brown/blue is negative. Run that wire from here to up by the package shelf's hinge point. I used Powerpole connectors since I had quite a few at home.

Now, when the hatch opens you can actually see things in there! And, of course should you want to remove the package shelf, you can. Just unplug the wire.

The pictures should explain it better.


Mounting the LED strips to the aluminum rod. Use zip-ties; tape will not last.




Getting a general idea of the layout:




Marking the holes to drill for the zip-ties (two per zip-tie):

Closeup of the zip-tie



Unfortunately the zip-ties are visible:



Tapping in to the cargo light power wire. Run this wire up to the package shelf's hinge:



The power plug, should you need to remove the package shelf:

Nice idea. That teeny light at the bottom of the cargo bay is useless if you have a trunk full of stuff and the aluminum rod will be a good heat sink for the LEDs.

You could use hot glue to secure the lights in place. It will hold firmly once hardened. Used it to secure LEDs to my sub in my Passat. Just use some tape temporarily to hold the lights and wires in place while applying the glue dollops. Once it cools, remove the tapes and add more glue where the tape was to ensure a secure attachment with no sags.

MT- thanks for taking pix and posting your how-to. Can you add more info about the wiring? I checked the links, but what are insulation displacement connectors? Are you using the Powerpole connectors just to allow the cargo cover to be removed, or is there an additional wiring reason? Do the LED's turn on in tandem with the trunk light?

Did you consider lighting under the stationary plastic covers to the left and right of the cover? (I tend to remove it often in the summer, so I'd like to avoid having to connect/disconnect).

Let us know how it looks at night!

hskrdu said:

MT- thanks for taking pix and posting your how-to. Can you add more info about the wiring? I checked the links, but what are insulation displacement connectors? Are you using the Powerpole connectors just to allow the cargo cover to be removed, or is there an additional wiring reason?

Click to expand...

IDC (insulation displacement connectors) are common. Most hardware stores should have them. They look like this.

The Powerpole connectors are simply to allow removal of the package shelf. I rarely remove it. You could use barrel connectors, Molex plugs, etc., whatever you have available.

hskrdu said:

Do the LED's turn on in tandem with the trunk light?

Click to expand...

Yes. Electrically, they're in parallel with the existing light, which means if the existing trunk light blows out, the LED's will still work.

hskrdu said:

Did you consider lighting under the stationary plastic covers to the left and right of the cover? (I tend to remove it often in the summer, so I'd like to avoid having to connect/disconnect).

Let us know how it looks at night!

Click to expand...

Actually, I never thought about that, but there's no reason it could not be done. In your case I can understand why you'd do it, but you still may find the problem of having light blocked by some big box.

They work great! If only I had bought decent LED light strips. They're bright enough, but barely, and the "white" light they generate is more like 60% white, 40% blue. <sigh>

vw_norm said:

You could use hot glue to secure the lights in place. It will hold firmly once hardened.

Click to expand...

I thought about that and may still do it. The problem is on the Golfs, the bottom of the package shelf has that fuzzy material on it. Hard plastic like you have would have been great. I was also concerned about melting the wire. My wire is real thin, like 24 gauge.

MT- thx for answering my Q's!

Ok, so the IDC's are like posi taps, which is how you're wiring power and ground for the LED's (instead of splicing or soldering the wires together), right?

Have you found that the aluminum rod was needed as a heat sink, or was also as a mounting solution?

hskrdu said:

Ok, so the IDC's are like posi taps, which is how you're wiring power and ground for the LED's (instead of splicing or soldering the wires together), right?

Click to expand...

Correct.

hskrdu said:

Have you found that the aluminum rod was needed as a heat sink, or was also as a mounting solution?

Click to expand...

It was solely a mounting solution because it's what I had available. Heat is not part of the question here; there isn't any.

Thanks MT! This is defintely in the plans. I just need to add it to the "modify and improve" list!

UPDATE

After a few weeks in service, it was necessary to replace the two LED strips I had, because they just weren't bright enough and were too blue.

So I replaced it with this and hot-glued the wire in place while I was at it. I went with that particular strip because "super bright" is not what you want at night. My new strip is 1860 lumens bright, a bit brighter than your average 100 watt light bulb and certainly up to the task.


Note: that same LED strip can be cut, and therefore would make good foot well lights. Hmm...

Nice!

I'm considering 2 ebay versions, both in warm white:
(2) flexible waterproof 12" strips, each with 12 SMD 5050 LEDs for $10
and
(1) flexible 3ft strip with 60 SMD 3528 LEDs for $5.

I only need about 12" to line the underside of each stationary rear hatch cover, but I can't really gather which will better suit the job.