Avant Facelift LED Taillight howto

[Louis97]

Hi after some advice in wiring. My 2008 avant has 4 wires for both inner & outer lights. Im trying to go from 4 pin halogen to 5 pin pre facelift. I have the new plugs from a donor car . Just cant figure the wiring out. Thanks

[Smac770]

L/R = left / right
O/I = outer (body) / inner (lid)

B8 wagon tail lamps.png

[darren.kellum]

@Smac (or anyone else who can help) I'm trying to help Louis above with his incandescent to pre-FL led upgrade on his A4 b8 avant. He bought a plug adapter that essentially sets up the pins in the right places for the LEDs and carries over a wire from outer to inner to make up for originals not having (i think) the side/brake light on the inner cluster https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/266325518...mis&media=COPY(link). The plug provider says that the lights should just work in the right places after plugging in but that does not seem to be the case. I've helped him code ch. 181 to zero. Side/tail lights, signals, fogs and reverse seem to work ok but the combination of brake plus side/tail light seems to not work as expected.

Looking purely at the incandescent original wiring would you say that repinning and bridging a wire from outer to inner would be enough to get pre-facelift euro LEDs working or would expect adaptation too?
If so any clues as to which adaptation codes per channel?

I thought my codes from my original s4 avant prefacelift LEDs (posted a page or so above) would just work for him but seems not.

Sent from my NE2213 using Tapatalk

[Smac770]

So B8.0 EU avant incandescent to B8.0 EU avant LED. From the chart above, we see the incans have 4 wires (3 power wires from the J393 and 1 ground wire) to each of the four lamp units (which each have a 4-pin plug), and the LEDs have 4 (3 power wires from the J393 and 1 ground wire) to the inner lamp units (which have an 8-pin plug for whatever reason) and 5 (4 power wires from the J393 and 1 ground wire) to the outer lamp units (which have a 5-pin plug). So I'm confused by "and carries over a wire from outer to inner to make up for originals not having (i think) the side/brake light on the inner cluster". There's no spare wires on the incan harness. In fact, he needs to add another wire to the J393 for each outer lamp unit.

The eBay pics show 4-pin > 5-pin adapters for the outer units, and 4-pin > 8-pin adapters for the inner units. Ok. You'll need the extra wire on the outer units. But why is there a 5th wire on the inner lamp units?

Looking at the eBay pic, the "upper" outer unit pigtail: (incan = 4-pin end; LED = 5-pin end)

incan/1 > LED/1
incan/2 > LED/3
incan/3 > LED/4
incan/4 > LED/5
brown wire > LED/2

That sort of looks like for the left outer, but not entirely. incan/3 needs to go to LED/2, and LED/4 needs to be the brown wire that needs to be run to 17-pin black pin 9. We see from the chart that 17-pin black pin 9 has a wire on it currently, going to right inner. But we can see it's going to make things much easier wiring wise if we move the wire from 17-black pin 8 to 17-brown pin 9, and the wire from 17-black pin 9 to 17-black pin 8. Now we just need new wires from left outer to 17-black pin 9 and right outer to 17-brown pin 10. Then just reorder the pins on the plug at the outer lamp units and the wiring is done there. You do need the plug adapters for the inners, but there's no rewiring per se; any reordering is just done by putting the wires in the right order on the 8-pin plugs.

It looks like the adapter for left outer is trying to match up functions, but that means the wires are not on the pins necessary for factory programming to work.

The programming certainly can't work as is. As we see in the chart, the lamp functions are not the same for most of the channels.

But this is where "flexibility" comes into play. Take for example the brake/tail assignment. If you're playing it straight legit, you have to move channel values around or new values in channels 195-203. But say you got creative with the wiring so you have the original inner lamp pin 1 (fog) on the new inner lamp pin 4 (fog). So the fog lamp pin 4 is now wired to the old channels that were the fog lights (17-black 8 and 9) rather than where they would be in a factory installation (17-brown/5 and 17-black/11). Then the fog lights are wired to the fog programmed channels, and the fog should be fine. This gets real messy real quick. I'd prefer to get the wiring and programming as it would have been factory, myself.


The most important validation you need to document at this point is ringing out the wiring and confirming which pin on the lamp plugs (the final plugs going into the lamp units, pigtails and whatever included) map to which 17-black and 17-brown pins. Once you have that truth documented, the rest is just connect the dots.

[darren.kellum]

Amazing as always much appreciated thanks! I'll digest that and hopefully can help Louis get this sorted.

Sent from my NE2213 using Tapatalk

[rand0mher0]

L/R = left / right
O/I = outer (body) / inner (lid)

B8 wagon tail lamps.png

Man thank you so much for this. Taking on a US B8.5 Allroad LED tails to Euro LED tails project and this took out all of the confusion and now looks like I dont need to change any of the pin locations, just the connectors, which is awesome.

[nofx1981]

Does anyone have a part number for the terminal pins used on the T17 connectors at the J393 module? Looking to run new 5th wires to the outers.

[Smac770]

Possibly useful information here: https://www.audizine.com/forum/showt...1#post13524453

or for $4: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/32568...2usa4itemAdapt

https://www.a4-freunde.com/showwiki....s+dazu+gehoert
If you depin one and measure, it's probably those 1.2mm MCON.

[jkrew]

Hello! I have a bit of a tricky question and am looking for a little advice. I recently purchased a complete set of tails from a forum member who I believe bought the set on kufatec (or could have been the second buyer of these tails as I was unable to get their info to ask this question to kufatec directly.) The set came with everything kufatec offers as a package (tails, wiring harness x4 and the coding dongle) and it is brand new. The new tails are going on a 2011 Prestige S-Line Avant with halogen bulbs.

This is the exact kit I bought from the forum member: https://www.kufatec.com/en/audi/a4/a...facelift-38908

Part numbers for the tails are as follows:
Outer tails:
8K9 945 095 D
8K9 945 096 D

Inner tails:
8K9 945 093 D
8K9 945 094 D

Fun fact: unless you are the original buyer from kufatec, they will refuse to provide any help whatsoever to you. I get it but also way to be dicks.

Anyhoo, I inspected the tails and noticed that the harness plug didn't fit the tail light due to a small notch on the female end of the tail light (see pic). Can I shave this notch down and just start plugging things in? Has anyone worked with this issue before?







Lastly, if anyone has any advice on how to work with these, has the full kufatec install PDF handy etc, I would greatly appreciate it. I'm more than capable of doing the install, I'm just horrible with wiring and don't want to burn my car down. I found a truncated install PDF online but am wondering if the full PDF has more answers. Thank you in advance!

[Smac770]

I assume you mean rev E for the inner lamp units, not rev D.

So you have a US B8.0 wagon incandescent and retrofitting EU B8.5 wagon LED?

The notch is to ensure the wrong unit is not used with the car. It would seem odd for the adapters to not use the correct harness plugs for the EU tails.
8K0973705 = 5-pin black, no notch provision
8K0973705A = 5-pin black, no notch provision, red locking tab, https://www.xdalys.lt/en/product/12431612567/
8K0973705B = 5-pin brown, with notch provision, https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-...ng/8k0973705b/

apparently comes in white too, https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-...ng/8k0973705g/

So you could either put the proper brown plug on the pigtail or file the notch down. From my diagram above, the wiring sequence for the EU and US B8.5 LED tails is the same.

[jkrew]

"So you have a US B8.0 wagon incandescent and retrofitting EU B8.5 wagon LED?"

Correct.


Awesome, thank you. I figured it was something simple. Just wish I could get a confirmation from kufatec but worst case, I'll just have to rewire if things don't match up.

[rand0mher0]

Man thank you so much for this. Taking on a US B8.5 Allroad LED tails to Euro LED tails project and this took out all of the confusion and now looks like I dont need to change any of the pin locations, just the connectors, which is awesome.

Coming back to this as I just "completed" this project. Completed in quotes because I need original b8.5 euro tail coding. I have OEM US b8.5 LED tail light (allroad) wiring so obviously the coding in the original post does not work for me. Currently I am using allroad coding but on allroads the turn signal and brake light are paired together. Does anyone have the coding to separate the brake light from turn signal?

Here is the OEM B8.5 Allroad LED coding for reference
181 65535
195 51201
196 51233
197 6
198 38
199 6
200 38
201 6
202 38
203 134
204 166
205 13
206 45
207 51201
208 51233
209 73
210 105

[Smac770]

Would be good to have the complete range of adaptation values, all channels from 181 through 214 for B8.5 US wagon LED to catalog.

For the channel function coding, brake is 5 (L) / 37 (R), turn is 12 (L) / 44 (R), and brake+turn is 6 (L) / 38 (R).

It's not "allroad" coding, it's "US" coding that is brake+turn, vs "ECE" coding that is brake or turn.

I don't know why, but the coding on channel 203/204 has the +128 value added. So 203/204 is 133/165 ECE or 134/166 US. I wondered if this reflects "is on the rear lid", but 201/202 is on the rear lid also, but uses the normal values (turn for ECE, brake+turn for US). This seems specific to the wagons with LED, B8.0 (channels 199/200) or B8.5 (channels 203/204). It matches to the brake light on the tail lid in ECE configs. It seems irrelevant to US configs, where everything is brake+turn, but the +128 seems to persist per your coding list.

Otherwise, the rest is good, 51201/51233 for tail, 13/45 for reverse, 73/105 for fog.

[rand0mher0]

OK here is the original allroad coding

allroad
181 65535
182 7
183 65535
184 7
185 65535
186 7
187 16383
188 0
189 3072
190 4
191 65535
192 3
193 6
194 7
195 51201
196 51233
197 6
198 38
199 6
200 38
201 6
202 38
203 134
204 166
205 13
206 45
207 51201
208 51233
209 73
210 105
211 51214
212 51215
213 16945
214 3

I think I'm on the right track with this, 95% there just running into an issue where my outer right turn signal no longer works and there is a bulb out error for it in the dash, have to play with the coding some more.
euro tail light coding for allroad wiring

181 65535
182 7
183 65535
184 7
185 65535
186 7
187 16383
188 0
189 3072
190 4
191 65535
192 3
193 6
194 7
195 51201
196 51233
197 5
198 37
199 12
200 44
201 12
202 44
203 133
204 165
205 13
206 45
207 51201
208 51233
209 73
210 105
211 51214
212 51215
213 14133
214 3

Edit: quick follow up, it was a loose pin in the connector after the swap. The above coding worked for me with euro tails on standard allroad wiring

[DadzWagon]

Hoping someone can help as I've gone through the entire thread and didn't see anything about this conversion....

2014 Allroad Premium (FL) w/incandescent tails to 2014 Allroad (FL) LED tails

Any help is greatly appreciated!

[Smac770]

For the wagons, the B8.0 incandescent and B8.5 incandescent are the same wiring/coding.
So converting a B8.5 US wagon incandescent to B8.5 US wagon LED is the same as one would do for a B8.0 US wagon incandescent (ie, all the US B8.0 A4 avants that converted to B8.5 allroad LED tails).

[DadzWagon]

Perfect, that's really the only confirmation I needed. I figured it was the case but didn't see anyone else who had done it with a B8.5 halogen. Thanks

[Sbert]

@Smac770,(or anyone who's knowledgeable about this) I have a 2014 b8.5 a4 premium US sedan. it came with halogen headlights and incandescent taillights. I converted the headlights to xenons and had to get the appropriate BCM to get them to work. The BCM was taken from a 2015 a4 premium plus. I'm attempting the tail lights, using this thread as reference but am having trouble with the wiring and coding. Luckily, when I bought the tail lights, they came with connectors for both inner and outers. For the outers, I removed the incandescent 4pin connectors and replaced with the LED 6pin connectors. For the inners, in order to use the LED harness, I had to cut and splice the wires. Currently, after tweaking both wires and codes, my daytime running lights are on, but when I press on the brake, my reverse lights turn on along with the LED outers.

https://tinypic.host/image/IMG-0351.TtpHx

The LED inners don't turn on at all when braking. My current channel values are the same as this chart from Reciprocity.

https://imgur.com/vTiKGhl

Been at this for 2 days and I finally got just the DRLs to stay on. My biggest problems right now are the inner LEDs not lighting up when braking and the reverse lights turning on with the outer LEDs when braking. Can anyone recommend the appropriate channel values for facelift incandescent to facelift LED for a b8.5 US sedan? Im in the Atlanta, Ga area. Thanks

[Smac770]

That linked chart isn't quite right; it's missing ch 206. ch 206 should be 45. Otherwise, at least for 195 through 210, it seems to match factory.

I assume you mean tail (parking) lights, not DRLs.

So B8.5 US sedan incandescent to B8.5 US sedan LED. Your first problem is you'll be short a wire to each body mounted outer unit. The incan config has 3 wires from the J393 to each outer unit, and 3 wires from the J393 to each inner unit. But the LED config requires 4 wires wires from the J393 to each outer unit, and then 3 wires from the J393 to each inner unit. This does not include the brown ground wire present at each of the four harness plugs. The ground wires do not connect to the J393, but to the vehicle chassis directly.

This is why the inner units' brake/turn/tail on channels 201/202 is not working; there's no wire from the J393 pins for those channels in an incan config. You need to move wires around on the two 17-pin plugs, as well as adding two more wires, to make this work.

Your other problem is the channels are not routed to the inner and outer units the same for the LED as for the incandescent. So channel 206 is the right reverse in both configs, but in the Incan config, that black/white wire goes to the right inner unit pin 4. While in the LED config, that black/white wire goes to the right outer unit pin 5.

So if you have the normal tail lamps for the B8.5 US sedan LED config, and you have the factory channel coding for the B8.5 US sedan LED config, then you need to make the wiring the same as the factory would have. Which is quite different from the incandescent config, not to mention needing two more wires added.

And of course there's the issue if you have the auto-dimming mirror, that the reverse detect line for it is connected to the left reverse wire. So, yeah, it's a good bit more than reordering some wires in the harness connector.

[Sbert]

That linked chart isn't quite right; it's missing ch 206. ch 206 should be 45. Otherwise, at least for 195 through 210, it seems to match factory.

I assume you mean tail (parking) lights, not DRLs.

So B8.5 US sedan incandescent to B8.5 US sedan LED. Your first problem is you'll be short a wire to each body mounted outer unit. The incan config has 3 wires from the J393 to each outer unit, and 3 wires from the J393 to each inner unit. But the LED config requires 4 wires wires from the J393 to each outer unit, and then 3 wires from the J393 to each inner unit. This does not include the brown ground wire present at each of the four harness plugs. The ground wires do not connect to the J393, but to the vehicle chassis directly.

This is why the inner units' brake/turn/tail on channels 201/202 is not working; there's no wire from the J393 pins for those channels in an incan config. You need to move wires around on the two 17-pin plugs, as well as adding two more wires, to make this work.

Your other problem is the channels are not routed to the inner and outer units the same for the LED as for the incandescent. So channel 206 is the right reverse in both configs, but in the Incan config, that black/white wire goes to the right inner unit pin 4. While in the LED config, that black/white wire goes to the right outer unit pin 5.

So if you have the normal tail lamps for the B8.5 US sedan LED config, and you have the factory channel coding for the B8.5 US sedan LED config, then you need to make the wiring the same as the factory would have. Which is quite different from the incandescent config, not to mention needing two more wires added.

And of course there's the issue if you have the auto-dimming mirror, that the reverse detect line for it is connected to the left reverse wire. So, yeah, it's a good bit more than reordering some wires in the harness connector.

Thanks for the quick reply. Are there any other ways to get it to work without having to run those two wires? If not, is adding those two wires a difficult process? Im assuming theyÂ’d run from each tail light to the two 17-pin plugs to the j393 towards the drivers seat right? Do you recommend attempting that?

[Smac770]

So B8.5 A4 sedan, regardless of US vs EU and incandescent vs LED, uses a set config of adaptation channels > J393 pins > wire colors. The variation comes in what value is put into each adaptation channel, where do the wires go, and which lighting element is the wire connected to. In the end, the whole purpose is to match the adaptation channel value to the proper lighting element. The pins, wires, plugs are just a connector between the channel value and the light element, so to say.

B8.5 sedan tail light wiring.jpg

I've listed the wire colors as the 2017 wiring diagram document listed them. Unclear if Audi "got it right". You'll need to check your wires and see if they match the documentation (so all black or gray with some colored stripe, and then the lone green wire). I suspect a number of the listings are backwards (say, green with black stripe (green/black) vs black with green stripe (black/green)).

The channels are always in pairs, left on odd channel, right on +1 even channel. The channel value for the right is always the left value +32. So there's effectively 8 blocks, up to 8 different lighting elements (8 left, 8 right). If we compare the NAR incandescent and NAR LED, we see there are three blocks of wires that flip flop between going to the outer modules vs the inner modules. And we see there's one additional block that's used for the LED config. For the NAR incandescent, we have 3 blocks for the outer and 3 blocks for the inner, so we'll have three wires from the J393 to each tail lamp module. For the NAR LED, we have 4 outer and 3 inner. So we need that extra pair of wires. At least they go to the outer, which are easy. If you were going Euro LED, you'd need an extra wire to all four module. Routing the new wires through that trunk lid rubber hose would be a pita.

So there's no reason not to add the extra two wires. I just don't know offhand what the p/n for the terminals pins would be. The harness plug ends would have those weather seals on the wires as well. The pin types are probably discussed somewhere in this thread.

So once you have the four wires to the outsides and three wires to the insides, it's just a matter of getting the wire on each 17-pin plug position (because you already have the factory coding for LED on the channels) connected to the correct pin position on each tail lamp plug.

So for example, the right inner module will have three wires there, gray/white on 1, brown on 2, gray on 3, and black/white on 4. So swap brown to 1 and gray/white to 2, leave the other two as is. So you have;

RI1 - ground > brown
RI2 - brake/turn > gray/white > ch 204 (instead of ch 208)
RI3 - brake/turn/tail > gray > ch 196 (instead of ch 202)
RI4 - fog > black/white > ch 206 (instead of ch 204)

So what that means is you have all three lightning elements on right inner connected, but not to the pins on the J393 they would have been. So you need to put the adaptation value that would have been in 202, 204, and 208 instead to 196, 206, and 204.

And then do the same for the left inner such that the left is paired with its matching right. And then the same again for the outer modules.

The one complication, because the left reverse changes between outer and inner, is the wire that goes to the auto-dimming mirror to tell it when the reverse lights are on (so it adapts the dimming) is no longer connected to the reverse light pin on the J393. Instead we set it to the fog light, since that's rarely used. Wouldn't want the mirror confused every time you hit the brakes or turned on a turn signal.

To really amend that, you'd have to find the wire to the mirror somewhere along the black wire, separate it from the black wire, and then splice it to the wire you use for the new left reverse, in which case I'd use the new wire you run for the reverse pins so you don't monkey with the other existing wires to the outer units.

[Sbert]

So B8.5 A4 sedan, regardless of US vs EU and incandescent vs LED, uses a set config of adaptation channels > J393 pins > wire colors. The variation comes in what value is put into each adaptation channel, where do the wires go, and which lighting element is the wire connected to. In the end, the whole purpose is to match the adaptation channel value to the proper lighting element. The pins, wires, plugs are just a connector between the channel value and the light element, so to say.

B8.5 sedan tail light wiring.jpg

I've listed the wire colors as the 2017 wiring diagram document listed them. Unclear if Audi "got it right". You'll need to check your wires and see if they match the documentation (so all black or gray with some colored stripe, and then the lone green wire). I suspect a number of the listings are backwards (say, green with black stripe (green/black) vs black with green stripe (black/green)).

The channels are always in pairs, left on odd channel, right on +1 even channel. The channel value for the right is always the left value +32. So there's effectively 8 blocks, up to 8 different lighting elements (8 left, 8 right). If we compare the NAR incandescent and NAR LED, we see there are three blocks of wires that flip flop between going to the outer modules vs the inner modules. And we see there's one additional block that's used for the LED config. For the NAR incandescent, we have 3 blocks for the outer and 3 blocks for the inner, so we'll have three wires from the J393 to each tail lamp module. For the NAR LED, we have 4 outer and 3 inner. So we need that extra pair of wires. At least they go to the outer, which are easy. If you were going Euro LED, you'd need an extra wire to all four module. Routing the new wires through that trunk lid rubber hose would be a pita.

So there's no reason not to add the extra two wires. I just don't know offhand what the p/n for the terminals pins would be. The harness plug ends would have those weather seals on the wires as well. The pin types are probably discussed somewhere in this thread.

So once you have the four wires to the outsides and three wires to the insides, it's just a matter of getting the wire on each 17-pin plug position (because you already have the factory coding for LED on the channels) connected to the correct pin position on each tail lamp plug.

So for example, the right inner module will have three wires there, gray/white on 1, brown on 2, gray on 3, and black/white on 4. So swap brown to 1 and gray/white to 2, leave the other two as is. So you have;

RI1 - ground > brown
RI2 - brake/turn > gray/white > ch 204 (instead of ch 208)
RI3 - brake/turn/tail > gray > ch 196 (instead of ch 202)
RI4 - fog > black/white > ch 206 (instead of ch 204)

So what that means is you have all three lightning elements on right inner connected, but not to the pins on the J393 they would have been. So you need to put the adaptation value that would have been in 202, 204, and 208 instead to 196, 206, and 204.

And then do the same for the left inner such that the left is paired with its matching right. And then the same again for the outer modules.

The one complication, because the left reverse changes between outer and inner, is the wire that goes to the auto-dimming mirror to tell it when the reverse lights are on (so it adapts the dimming) is no longer connected to the reverse light pin on the J393. Instead we set it to the fog light, since that's rarely used. Wouldn't want the mirror confused every time you hit the brakes or turned on a turn signal.

To really amend that, you'd have to find the wire to the mirror somewhere along the black wire, separate it from the black wire, and then splice it to the wire you use for the new left reverse, in which case I'd use the new wire you run for the reverse pins so you don't monkey with the other existing wires to the outer units.

Thank you for the info brother. I dont have auto-dimming mirrors so IÂ’m good on that department. Ended up putting the Incandescent tail lights back on but IÂ’m planning on doing this in the coming weeks. Any idea where I can get the appropriate wires? I saw a couple ebay listings selling a box of wires and harnesses for a B8 a4 but Im worried that they wonÂ’t have what I need.

[Smac770]

I'd just use some old speaker wire I have laying in a box that came with some Kenwood car speakers. The factory wire would only be 0.35mm² (22awg).

Don't know what the p/n for the harness plug at the outer modules is, the B8.5 wiring harness pages are woefully poor compared to the B8.0 ones.

You can see a B8.0 version (4-pin) in this image, showing the weather seals on the terminals since the plug is "outside".


The rear lid plugs are not "outside". It's just a matter if the pins you remove from the original plug fit into the new plug (if you have to change the plug at all for this).

Here's an example of a housing, seals, and crimp terminals kit, but for some other plugs which you don't have:
3-pin: https://www.ecstuning.com/b-ecs-part...3d0973703-kit/
6-pin: https://www.ecstuning.com/b-ecs-part...1j0973713-kit/

For the J393 17-pin end, pretty sure the harness plug crimp terminals are just normal MCON 1.2mm female.
The VW p/n for the crimp pin is 12527510672, or TE p/n 7-1452653-1 (https://www.te.com/usa-en/product-7-1452653-1.html).
The VW repair wire p/n is 000979034E. The nice part about that is the terminals are already crimped and you get two (one on each end of the wire). Cut it in half and then you can normal crimp it to the wire leads you run to the outside modules. But repair wires tend to be "very expensive for what they are".

[BruisedLee]

hello all and especially Smac770!! i've read through this whole thread many many times. i am a newbie audi guy and all this is messing my head up with my adult ADD

so to start I have a US 2011 a4 avant with incandescent tail lights. I have bought a pair of preface lift LED tails (from japan!!! they were only $200usd)

im pretty sure all the info i need is in this thread but the info is strewn across multiple posts and by different people. as i was going through the thread, i learned that there are pre-facelift LED tail lights and facelift LED tail lights. and then i learned that "For the wagons, the B8.0 incandescent and B8.5 incandescent are the same wiring/coding"

here i was trying to wire what i thought were facelift led tails in my 2011 a4, only to find things just didn't make sense. also I don't know which wiring diagram to reference for my 2011 a4 avant (b8.0 ?)

My JDM pre facelift LED tail lights came with both sets of inner (8 pin plug with 4 wires pinned) and outer plugs (5 pin). my plan is to repin my 2011 avant with the supplied jdm pre-facelift LED plugs, and add in the necessary pin/wire to the outer lamps (4 pins to 5 pins)

i just want to confirm my factory 2011 avant wiring (B8.0) and JDM lamp wiring first, and then do the repining and then adding the additional pin/wire to the outer lamps.

i don't know the channel numbers (195-210?) or plug names (17p? 17o? 32c?) or where the physically module the wires originate from so I'm using the numbers on the plugs themselves and the colors of the wires as reference. i'm also unclear on how to name the functions of each wire... so if someone can confirm my US 2011 avant wiring:

my 2011 us avant wiring:
left outter:
1 grey/black : brakes
2 black : reverse
3 green : turns
4 brown : ground

left inner:
1 blue/black : brakes
2 brown : ground
3 grey : parking/tails ?
4 grey/yellow: rear fog

Right outer:
1. brown : ground
2. black/yellow: turns
3. black/white: reverse
4. black/green: brakes

right inner:
1. grey/white : brakes
2. brown : ground
3. grey : parking/tails ?
4 grey/blue : rear fog

JDM preface lift LED tail lights (can someone confirm this is the same as US or euro pre face lift led tails?)
left outer
1 grey/black: lamp ?
2 black/blue: brake
3 black : reverse
4 black/red : turns
5 brown : ground

left inner:
2 green/black: brake
4 grey/yellow: rear fog
6 brown : ground
8 grey : parking/tails ?

right outer:
1. brown : ground
2. black/grey: turns
3. black/white: reverse
4. grey/black : brakes
5. green/black: lamp ?

right inner: (started de pinning oops)
2. grey/white? :
4. grey/blue? :
6. brown? : ground
8. grey? :

so after confirmation of US 2011 a4 avant wiring and jdm pre-facelift led tails wire colors and functions, i would just match the functions by repinning and adding that extra pin to the outer lamps.

for example, for left inner lamps:
brakes: move blue/black wire to pin 2
ground: move brown wire to pin 6
parking/tails: move grey wire to pin 8
rear fog: move grey/yellow wire to pin 4

also, for the outer lamps' 5th wire, people seem to either run a wire from the the factory modual (not sure where it is physically but i think its behind hatch panel on the left?) or run a jumper wire from the inner lamps to the outer? just so i'm clear, which function is this for? "lamp" ?

I'm more inclined to run a jumper wire from the inner lamps to outers because i don't have any extra pins to put into the factory modual....

is my logic sound? are my references correct? thanks all

and then i go and find someone to do the channel re-coding.....

IMG_0275.jpgIMG_0300.jpgIMG_0279.jpgIMG_0295.jpgIMG_0294.jpg

I'd just use some old speaker wire I have laying in a box that came with some Kenwood car speakers. The factory wire would only be 0.35mm² (22awg).

Don't know what the p/n for the harness plug at the outer modules is, the B8.5 wiring harness pages are woefully poor compared to the B8.0 ones.

You can see a B8.0 version (4-pin) in this image, showing the weather seals on the terminals since the plug is "outside".


The rear lid plugs are not "outside". It's just a matter if the pins you remove from the original plug fit into the new plug (if you have to change the plug at all for this).

[Smac770]

vehicle - B8.0 US wagon incandescent
new lamps - B8.0 RoW wagon LED
So I assume your original tail lights have p/n 8K9...A and the new tail lights are p/n 8K9...B.

So the inners are still 4-wire (3 wires from the J393, one ground wire), but the outers are changed from 4-wire to 5-wire. Bonus in this case is the reverse lamp did not change between inner and outer, it was outer and it stayed outer. So all you do is run two new wires from the J393 to the outer lamps, easy, and fix the pin order at the plugs and update the J393 coding.

Minus the four ground wires, all the wires at the lamp plugs come from the J393, which is in the right rear, the one with the numerous electrical plugs on it. You can't jumper anything because all the wires represent a unique lamp operation.

tail light pins.jpg

[BruisedLee]

6DF62958-A57E-48B4-95C0-FAA9DFB26E7B.jpg

Thank you so much. Going by your chart, I really don’t need to pay attention to wire color as so much as wire position. And match function.

I am still confused on how to translate the functions. could you look at my chicken scratch attached and tell me what functions to match?

And could you tell me what pins gets extended from j393 to which outer plug pins?

[Smac770]

L I = left inner
L O = left outer
R I = right inner
R O = right outer
so which wires go where is already noted

So take the wire from 17 brown pin 11. It's at left inner 3, and you need to move it to left inner 8.

But take the second set of four wires. There's no wire on those pin positions at the J393 in your vehicle. So take the wires from the J393 pin positions for channels 207-210 and move them to the J393 pin positions for channels 199-202.

Then add new wires to 17 black pin 12 and 17 brown pin 13, running one to left outer 2 and one to right outer 4. Now you have wires on all the expected J393 pins and at all the tail lamp pins. And you can just use the normal coding values for B8.0 RoW wagon LED.

[BruisedLee]

Wow. Ok. Totally not what I had in mind. I thought I would just repin 4 tail plugs and stay away from the J393 and re-code the channels. But your way makes more sense because it retains the factory channel values so no need for re coding, correct?

Looks like I Have to move 6 wires at J393 (I think you mistakenly told me 4 wires).

I’m taking wires 210 209 208 207 204 203 and moving them to 203 202 204 203 200 199, respectively at J393. This provides the wires with the correct codes.

And then I have to repin at the plug side to match functions. This puts the correctly coded wires into the correct position on the tail light plugs.

For example: Chanel 204 gets moved to 200 at J393. And then RI4 pin gets moved to RI2.

And then I will add two wires to LO2 and RO4. Where do these wires originate from? Some channel on J393?

Please see my updated chart. I count 20 wire moves? 6 wires at J393, all 8 inner light plug wires, an additional 4 pins moved on outer plugs. And then add 2 more wires to the outer lamp plugs.

I haven’t looked yet, but I hope channel numbers are visible on the J393
0BD1B5A9-A4B0-46EF-A5C1-38D6C8925645.jpg

L I = left inner
L O = left outer
R I = right inner
R O = right outer
so which wires go where is already noted

So take the wire from 17 brown pin 11. It's at left inner 3, and you need to move it to left inner 8.

But take the second set of four wires. There's no wire on those pin positions at the J393 in your vehicle. So take the wires from the J393 pin positions for channels 207-210 and move them to the J393 pin positions for channels 199-202.

Then add new wires to 17 black pin 12 and 17 brown pin 13, running one to left outer 2 and one to right outer 4. Now you have wires on all the expected J393 pins and at all the tail lamp pins. And you can just use the normal coding values for B8.0 RoW wagon LED.

[Smac770]

You'll still need to recode the channels because the coding for a B8.0 RoW wagon LED is not the same as for your vehicle. But, it means you can just put the values in straight without any shifting of the values between channels. In the end, all that matters is you get the channel value on the channel that is associated with the J393 pin that is going to the tail light pin that is for the light element for which that coding value is appropriate. That's all. coding value on one end, light element on the other end, everything in between is just a connection path.

All the channels are hard associated with a specific pin on the J393. That's not configurable. Set in stone, as listed in my chart. So "channels" don't move. You might put whatever adaptation value in a specific adaptation channel, and that value needs to be appropriate for whatever light element you wired to the J393 pin that's linked to that adaptation channel. If you instead hook that light element up to a different J393 pin, then the adaptation value for that light element needs to go in that associated adaptation channel.

No, you only move four wires on the J393. Then add two more. You're not moving channels, you're moving wires. From one pin position on a 17-pin plug to some other pin position.
17 black 12 > 17 brown 9
17 brown 13 > 17 black 8
32 black 31 > 17 black 9
32 black 30 > 17 brown 10
new wire > 17 black 12
new wire > 17 brown 13
The moves are between plugs, so you might have to unwind the harness wrap a bit, or maybe even extend the wires.

The only special wire is the left reverse, because it's spliced to some other things. But you avoid that problem because the reverse lamp is on the outside in before and after for you. For these where the reverse changes between body and rear lid, the solution is more complicated.

This the coding for a B8.0 RoW wagon LED that I have copied down from wherever I copied it:

181 65535
182 7
183 16335
184 7
185 65535
186 7
187 16383
188 1
189 4032
190 5
191 16383
192 3
193 6
194 7
195 7811
196 7843
197 5124
198 5156
199 133
200 165
201 12
202 44
203 73
204 105
205 13
206 45
207 5
208 37
209 0
210 0
211 51214
212 51215
213 14643
214 3

You have to enter a security code to access these adaptation channels.

[Louis97]

Hi mate I’ve finally got some facelift lights now and struggling with getting reverse light and the red drl comes on with the brake lights

[BruisedLee]

Damn my head is spinning. Thank you for walking me through this.

So I will just put “what I think I know” to the side for now and just “do what I need to do”

I need some clarification On the J393 side.

Are what I have pictures the J393 plugs in Question in picture 1? Are these the “17 black ” and “17 brown” plugs? I’m not familiar on how to depin the brown plug. I think I figured out how to depin the black plug... what/where is 32c plug?

How are the pins numbered in these plugs? I don’t see any numbers?

take the second set of four wires. There's no wire on those pin positions at the J393 in your vehicle. So take the wires from the J393 pin positions for channels 207-210 and move them to the J393 pin positions for channels 199-202.

So after i can identify which pin is on what I assume is the J393 plugs, I move pins from:
- black 12 to brown 9 (207 to 199?)
- brown 13 to black 8 (208 to 200?)
- 32c(???) black to black 8 ( 209 to 201?)
- 32c(???) back to brown 10 (210 to 202?)
Where/ what is 32c?

Then add new wires to 17 black pin 12 and 17 brown pin 13, running one to left outer 2 and one to right outer 4. Now you have wires on all the expected J393 pins and at all the tail lamp pins. And you can just use the normal coding values for B8.0 RoW wagon LED.

So here I first have to identify where black 12 and brown 13 pins should go and buy these two pins, stick ‘‘em in and wire them to LO2 and RO4.

And then I have to repin all the 8 inner plugs tail side to what I attached as picture 2

So in summery, that would be 12 pin moves and 2 pin adds total? (4 pins @ J393 (207-210 to 199-202) and 8 pins @ both inner tail
Light plugs?) and two pins/wires added (black 12 and brown 13 to LO2 and RO4)

Am I understanding correctly?

[darren.kellum]

So B8.0 EU avant incandescent to B8.0 EU avant LED. From the chart above, we see the incans have 4 wires (3 power wires from the J393 and 1 ground wire) to each of the four lamp units (which each have a 4-pin plug), and the LEDs have 4 (3 power wires from the J393 and 1 ground wire) to the inner lamp units (which have an 8-pin plug for whatever reason) and 5 (4 power wires from the J393 and 1 ground wire) to the outer lamp units (which have a 5-pin plug). So I'm confused by "and carries over a wire from outer to inner to make up for originals not having (i think) the side/brake light on the inner cluster". There's no spare wires on the incan harness. In fact, he needs to add another wire to the J393 for each outer lamp unit.

The eBay pics show 4-pin > 5-pin adapters for the outer units, and 4-pin > 8-pin adapters for the inner units. Ok. You'll need the extra wire on the outer units. But why is there a 5th wire on the inner lamp units?

Looking at the eBay pic, the "upper" outer unit pigtail: (incan = 4-pin end; LED = 5-pin end)

incan/1 > LED/1
incan/2 > LED/3
incan/3 > LED/4
incan/4 > LED/5
brown wire > LED/2

That sort of looks like for the left outer, but not entirely. incan/3 needs to go to LED/2, and LED/4 needs to be the brown wire that needs to be run to 17-pin black pin 9. We see from the chart that 17-pin black pin 9 has a wire on it currently, going to right inner. But we can see it's going to make things much easier wiring wise if we move the wire from 17-black pin 8 to 17-brown pin 9, and the wire from 17-black pin 9 to 17-black pin 8. Now we just need new wires from left outer to 17-black pin 9 and right outer to 17-brown pin 10. Then just reorder the pins on the plug at the outer lamp units and the wiring is done there. You do need the plug adapters for the inners, but there's no rewiring per se; any reordering is just done by putting the wires in the right order on the 8-pin plugs.

It looks like the adapter for left outer is trying to match up functions, but that means the wires are not on the pins necessary for factory programming to work.

The programming certainly can't work as is. As we see in the chart, the lamp functions are not the same for most of the channels.

But this is where "flexibility" comes into play. Take for example the brake/tail assignment. If you're playing it straight legit, you have to move channel values around or new values in channels 195-203. But say you got creative with the wiring so you have the original inner lamp pin 1 (fog) on the new inner lamp pin 4 (fog). So the fog lamp pin 4 is now wired to the old channels that were the fog lights (17-black 8 and 9) rather than where they would be in a factory installation (17-brown/5 and 17-black/11). Then the fog lights are wired to the fog programmed channels, and the fog should be fine. This gets real messy real quick. I'd prefer to get the wiring and programming as it would have been factory, myself.


The most important validation you need to document at this point is ringing out the wiring and confirming which pin on the lamp plugs (the final plugs going into the lamp units, pigtails and whatever included) map to which 17-black and 17-brown pins. Once you have that truth documented, the rest is just connect the dots.

Hi SMAC

Looking specifically at this section from your comments above

"if we move the wire from 17-black pin 8 to 17-brown pin 9, and
the wire from 17-black pin 9 to 17-black pin 8.
Now we just need new wires from left outer to 17-black pin 9 and
right outer to 17-brown pin 10. Then just reorder the pins on the plug at the outer lamp units and the wiring is done there."

We did this yesterday. From my understanding this moved incand. fog lights from channels 200 and 201 to channels 199 and 200. Therefore needing adaptations coded on ch 199 set from 0 to 73 (LI Fog), and ch 200 set from 73 to 105 (RI Fog)

Then added new wire from 17-black pin 9 (ch.201) to left outer - Pin 3 for left outer side/tail light (stripe led) - therefore requiring adaptation coding from 105 (old fog) to 51202 (LO Tail),
Then added new wire from 17-brown pin 10 (ch.202) to right outer - pin 3 for right outer side/tail light (stripe led) - therefore requiring adaptation coding from 0 (not previously used) to 51234 (RO Tail),

For some reason the new 202 channel which was previously coded as zero. Will not accept a new value and just says Error. Any ideas why that might be?
I should add that this has moved on from retrofitting from EU Incand. to EU LED now from EU Incand. to EU FL LED. So we can forget the adapters etc from the previous post and just consider stock Incand. wiring, going to EU FL LED.

[Smac770]

I've remember others posting that channels 199-202 can be "funny". I've always found it odd that B8.0 RoW wagon incandescent used the middle of those two pairs, rather than a normal even/odd pair. It's like someone shoved fog left and fog right on 8 and 9 black going by wiring pin pairs rather than proper channel pairs (normally anytime black 8 and 9 are n/c, so are brown 9 and 10, because the channel pairs are one black and one brown). And being in RoW, it could be a low line J393 that simply doesn't support the coding of the unused channels. Kind of like will 201/202 take a value here on the US units.

So B8.0 Euro wagon incandescent to B8.5 Euro wagon LED? Rather than to B8.0 ....? B8.0 Euro wagon LED at least only needed 14 of the 16 channels. But B8.5 wagon LED uses all 16 channels. So your 202 problem complicates that. For the new lamps, the factory config would have been the outer turn signals on 199/200 and the inner turn signals on 201/202. Coding values would be for 199-202 would be 12, 44, 12, 44.

[darren.kellum]

I see, ok well we might need to fudge it then. We were already going to loop a wire over from outers to inners to power the inner indicators so that will save a need for 2 channels. But I just need one for the right outer brake which i was hoping would be that new wire in ch. 202. We'll try the other blank channels but if worse comes to worse we can just loop a wire over from the other side brake to power directly but obviously not ideal.
Will let you know how we get on.

thanks

[BruisedLee]

But take the second set of four wires. There's no wire on those pin positions at the J393 in your vehicle. So take the wires from the J393 pin positions for channels 207-210 and move them to the J393 pin positions for channels 199-202.

I like this discussion. Its helping me understand this system.

If I can I get help/confirmation on my post above about moving pins on the J393 side. So far as I understand it, @Smac770 you are suggesting I move pins between the brown and black plug at the J393 side and then also moving pins around accordingly at the tail plug side as well and then putting in new channel values. Is this correct?

2 things throwing me off:

- Seems like many people are getting by by just moving only tail light side pins adding the two outer wires and then changing some channel values. keeping the j393 module side pins are untouched ? is this not possible for my set up? (us 2011 avant upgrading to pre face lift LED tails)

- I really am just trying to do what you’re suggesting to me because I trust you and I think it will be “more like factory” by moving pins on the module side (if I’m understanding correctly). I get stuck though. For example, referring back to the first chart you made for me, looking at channel 208 17p brown 13. It is wired to RI 1 for fog. Per your suggestion if i understand right, I will move this wire/pin from the 208 to 200 (?), that is 17p brown 13 at the J393 module side moved to 17o black 8. this wire was for RI FOG, but with this move it will now be RI brake? is this reconsiled by the channel value change?

so if i have the instruction clear, i still don't know how the pins in the plugs by the J393 module are numbered?
I also think i maybe misunderstanding you and you ARE just telling me to move only pins on the tail light side?

[Smac770]

People can do whatever they want. All that matters is matching the adaptation value to the light element. That path is:

adaptation value >>> adaptation channel -> J393 pin -> wiring harness to J393 pin >>> wiring harness to tail lamp pin -> tail lamp pin -> tail lamp light element

Some things are locked. Which pin on the tail lamp plug goes to which tail lamp light element is locked, and depends on the specific tail lamp version involved. Which channel goes to which J393 terminal pin is locked by the design of the J393. So your two points of option (>>>) are which adaptation value is assigned to each adaptation channel, and which J393 terminal pin is wired to which tail lamp terminal pin. That latter option can be changed at either end, on the harness plug that goes into the J393, or on the harness plug that goes into the tail lamp units.

There are no B8.0 US wagon LED tail lamps; Audi never made them. Not till B8.5 did they make US regulation compliant LED tails for a wagon (which was the allroad at that point in our market).

B8.0 NAR wagon incandescent uses 12 adaptation values to control 12 lighting elements using 12 wires. B8.0 RoW wagon LED uses 14. And the adaptation values are not all the same since RoW tails do not use the same light function configuration as NAR tails. I've posted the adaptation values for the latter config as the factory wiring would have applied them. But if you prefer to move adaptation values around instead of wires around, it's all the same to me.

So take the list of values and the chart I already posted. Factory would have run 17-pin brown pin 11 to left inner module pin 8, and set value 7811 (brake+tail) in channel 195 (the channel hard locked to 17-pin brown pin 11). You can run whichever wire you want to left inner pin 8, so long as whichever J393 pin you connected it to has 7811 as the adaptation value for the adaptation channel associated with that J393 pin.

[BruisedLee]

Thank you. I understand the theory now. Can I get help With the physical Actions? Can you tell / confirm to me which plug is 17p brown and 17o black and 32c black and 32d gray? Can you tell me how the j393 plugs are number to move the pins? And just confirm to me that what you suggest in my situation is that pins are moved at both the j393 module side AND tail light side?

[darren.kellum]

The pins are numbered, when you take the inner block of pins out the plug case by either pulling back the red tab on the 17 plugs or sliding the inner block out by prying back the inner tab on the 32 plugs, you'll see on the pin blocks that they have numbers (look very closely they are very small) and can work out the pin position from there. The 32s have a starting number (1 or 16) on each side and so you count up from there.

The concept of needing more wires to be added at the module and/moving wires is purely based on how many bulbs you need to light up at the lights and where they need to light up (outer or inner).

If for arguments sake you have 16 light functions (e.g. brake, fog, indicator etc) to light up across all your lights but your old lights have 12, then you'll need more wires plugged in the module otherwise you cant tell the module to power them. You can cheat a little if you don't have enough channels on the module to use by just linking lights together e.g. left outer indicator, you can tap into the wire and link it across into left inner indicator (that saves using 1 channel pin) but is not Audi original wiring obviously.

Moving the existing wires is also sometimes preferable because you may have an original light on one wire but it makes sense to move it at the plug pin so you can easily just change its function from e.g. a brake light to e.g. a fog light from outer to inner as that's where the wires run to already.

[Smac770]

You see in the pic the plugs are 32-pin and 17-pin, and the various colors. So that's simple enough. Then on the plugs are embossed numbers denoting the pin numbering. 1...16 and 17...32 on the 32-pins, 1...7 and 8...14 and then 15/16/17 is the middle row on the 17-pins.

The value in using the factory coding is you don't have to think about the non-light element channels (181-194, and 213 and 214). You can just copy them over as is. But that means getting wires on the J393 pins that go to the correct location (left vs right, inner vs outer). Once at the correct location, then you can just put it on whichever pin on the tail lamp plug it belongs. The alternative is to leave wires where they are at the J393 end, and just move the channel coding where it needs to be for whichever pin the wire is connected. Run with the coding of the other channels as listed and see what happens. I suspect the 16xxx values might need to be changed if you end up using channels 209/210 (which are unused in the factory config for B8.0 RoW wagon LED).

[BruisedLee]

The pins are numbered, when you take the inner block of pins out the plug case by either pulling back the red tab on the 17 plugs or sliding the inner block out by prying back the inner tab on the 32 plugs, you'll see on the pin blocks that they have numbers (look very closely they are very small) and can work out the pin position from there. The 32s have a starting number (1 or 16) on each side and so you count up from there.

The concept of needing more wires to be added at the module and/moving wires is purely based on how many bulbs you need to light up at the lights and where they need to light up (outer or inner).

If for arguments sake you have 16 light functions (e.g. brake, fog, indicator etc) to light up across all your lights but your old lights have 12, then you'll need more wires plugged in the module otherwise you cant tell the module to power them. You can cheat a little if you don't have enough channels on the module to use by just linking lights together e.g. left outer indicator, you can tap into the wire and link it across into left inner indicator (that saves using 1 channel pin) but is not Audi original wiring obviously.

Moving the existing wires is also sometimes preferable because you may have an original light on one wire but it makes sense to move it at the plug pin so you can easily just change its function from e.g. a brake light to e.g. a fog light from outer to inner as that's where the wires run to already.

this is exactly what i needed to know. thank you sooooooo much. i swear i took those plugs apart and looked for numbers, but it was a bit dark out. will look more carefully. i appriciate you.

You see in the pic the plugs are 32-pin and 17-pin, and the various colors. So that's simple enough. Then on the plugs are embossed numbers denoting the pin numbering. 1...16 and 17...32 on the 32-pins, 1...7 and 8...14 and then 15/16/17 is the middle row on the 17-pins.

The value in using the factory coding is you don't have to think about the non-light element channels (181-194, and 213 and 214). You can just copy them over as is. But that means getting wires on the J393 pins that go to the correct location (left vs right, inner vs outer). Once at the correct location, then you can just put it on whichever pin on the tail lamp plug it belongs. The alternative is to leave wires where they are at the J393 end, and just move the channel coding where it needs to be for whichever pin the wire is connected. Run with the coding of the other channels as listed and see what happens. I suspect the 16xxx values might need to be changed if you end up using channels 209/210 (which are unused in the factory config for B8.0 RoW wagon LED).

thanks for all the help. sorry for such basic questions!!! i finally feel confidant to start moving and adding pins. i'm actually still waiting for the pins to arrive and i still need to find someone to do the coding as well.

are there any options for someone to code my car remotely?