Car projects

2001 Audi A6 2.7T

Smoked side marker lights

Here's a picture of the car with stock side markers. See how they stand out against that nice, dark ming blue pearl? Hmmmmmm...... (Click on images to enlarge)

What to do? What to do?

This what the side markers look like out of the car. (The square cutout in the lamp hole is toward the front of the car.) Use a thin piece of plastic (or dental floss; I used my REI card) and slide it under the front part of the side marker and slowly lift the front edge. If you can lift it enough to get another piece of plastic (or floss) in there (and if you have another pair of hands available), you can try to compress the tab (on the right side of the lamp housing in the photo) while still pulling up on the front end of the lamp lens. In MY case, the side markers just popped out before I got a second 'tool' in there. It takes a lot of force to pop them out, but if you start at the front, you SHOULDN'T break anything. Just pull steadily; don't yank.

See how they practically disappear, now? Mmmmmm.....

Smoked tail lights

Now, why would you put all that cool smoked plastic around the license plate and leave all that BRIGHT red plastic on the tail lights? It just didn't look quite right......

Here's a comparison, halfway through the installation to see how the two options look, side by side....

The finished product. I'm guessing this is more what the designers had in mind.....

Splash guards

Some people think they're an insult to the beautiful lines of the car. I was afraid of the same thing, but was pleasantly surprised by how well they blended with the shape. Unfortunately, I live in an area where there always seems to be SOME kind of roadwork going on and I was tired of trying to get all that crap off the sills and doors. Soooo, I went ahead and ordered my 'mud flaps'. I took the advice of a fellow AudiWorlder and installed StonGard under them to protect the paint from abrasion by the plastic guards. I ordered one square foot of StonGard (a 6" strip off their 24" roll). It almost wasn't enough. But, then, I made a few mistakes, too. Click here for detailed steps on how I did it (sorry, no photos).

Once the StonGard was on, it was a simple matter of jacking up one corner of the car at a time, removing the wheel, installing the splash guard, reinstalling the wheel, etc. Installation was a breeze with the included hardware and instructions EXCEPT:

On the rear guards, the lowest, most inboard screw has nothing of substance behind it to screw into, just the felt fender lining. (There's a rubber hose back there, practically in the perfect place, but I assumed it was not meant for that purpose.) So I got a couple of small bolts with nuts and washers, drilled a small hole in the felt fender lining (using the mostly-installed splash guard as a guide), and used these screws and nuts to make the last connection. When drilling, be VERY careful NOT to drill through the rubber hoses mentioned above!

Here are a couple pictures showing the splash guards (mostly) from the front and back in bright sunlight. They're practically invisible in shadows or at night, particularly on the darker cars.

Final notes:

On the speed bumps in ONE particular parking lot, the front splash guards scrape at certain speeds. The car is NOT lowered at all, though it does have the factory sport package. It took me a few scrapes to figure out what that god awful noise was. (Fortunately, I'm almost never in that parking lot!)

I haven't been in enough real weather yet to know how much of a difference they'll make in terms of keeping the car clean longer. I'll update this as I learn more.

Someone asked if I had noticed any additional wind noise because of the splash guards. I have not, but I have not been listening for it, either. I'll update this as I learn more.