##B6 Front Headlight & Tail light REPLACEMENT Guide! ## UPDATED> GUIDE NOW UPLOADED

Hi Allen

Just turn it up over and the light fitting becomes loose giving you loads more space to change the blub.

First, a sincere thank you to RickT for the excellent how-to.

First time having to change a rear bulb since acquiring an A4 Avant earlier in the year. Handbook: "A specialist job requiring some dismantling, take it to your Dealer." Yeah, right!

I've no doubt I would have figured it out after some amount of exploration, however I have a high regard for one-Marque forums and was delighted to find VWAF for VAG advice and expertise.

In case it helps someone coming along later with the same job ahead, the only real point to watch for is that the small bolt securing the cluster unit - the only thing you have to undo other than the cable-connector once the unit is free - doesn't drop behind the outer panel before you fully withdraw it, else it would be a total pain to recover unless you got lucky dabbing around with a magnetic retriever maybe.

It is worth noting that if there are two of you you don't have to remove the bolt completely to free the cluster unit, just back it off past its 'bite' point but be careful to approach it carefully as there's barely a couple more turns then left on the thread before it would be free to drop in to the abyss below it!

So the person on screwdriver-duty needs to be cautious when that point is getting near, it is a bit of a by-feel process with input from the other person checking if the cluster is showing signs of being loose/free.

And it would help if you know beforehand whether the bolt is short or long so so you don't start going slowly in quarter-turn-and-try-once-more increments after 1/4" when the bolt is 1.5" long! Hopefully one of the photos I have added will help a little on that anyway.

But if there's just one of you to get the job done, it is more than sensible to take steps to capture the bolt once loosened part-way, even if your driver-tip is magnetic - it is a long-ish bolt in a tight-ish location and could accidentally get jostled-off as you withdraw it if you make unlucky contact with the body/panel/trim edge or are withdrawing off-straight without being aware of it. It happened to me many years ago now and gave me a truly torturous time recovering a special-fitting small bolt-on component on a lovely old Merc, that due to age and specialism I could only have replaced by getting one made .. which would also have needed the one I had dropped as a pattern!

The bolt you are withdrawing has a small hex-head and also takes a phillips/crosshead driver. It is located within the centre of what has the appearance of being a larger hex-headed bolt because of the limited view and the shading caused by the inset and the small access hole through trim/panel. At first glance this can give the impression that you need to undo *the large bolt* that you think you are seeing, which sets you off scratching your head because it is larger than the hole you would have to withdraw it through as well as being unable to get a socket on it through that hole in the first place!

But really it is dead simple, all you have to do is realise/observe that the deal just needs a suitable driver in the crosshead and you are golden. I think it is probably possible for a smaller socket to be able to locate over it on a 1/4" bar if you have a small-set, but I didn't bother trying as it was nothing more than a handy-screwdriver job and I already had one right there.

If you can get a small socket through and over it without interference from the collar surrounding it, then presumably that would also hold the head steady on withdrawal ... however, the head is only shallow and the bolt is relatively lengthy and so there could still be a possibility of it dropping out or being dislodged by accident so be aware.

If using a screwdriver however then there's many little tricks such as using blu-tac on the driver-tip (sometimes fails to work, so okay unless you need a guaranteed result), or sliding a tube over the screw/nut head if there's enough access and unscrewing through that tunnel-to-safety.

A simple method that I have used countless times over the years and have never gone wrong with however, is to use the barrel of a felt-tip pen or similar. Not the rigid-plastic type as they can shatter or at least split in the process, but the softer-plastic type, firm but with a little give.

The idea is to back-out the bolt/screw a short way with a screwdriver so it turns easily and also has the head exposed, and then ease the end of the pen-barrel over it making sure to keep the same axis as the screw/bolt for max stability. And you don't even have to lose a perfectly good pen in the process - most of them have an end-cap and you just remove that and there's some clear space before you see the ink-tube or whatever ... use it and pop the end cap back after and it's a pen again! In my case however my toolbox had just acquired a first Audi-special tool :)

(At a push, use a rigid one, let it split, take it off and then wrap sticky/gaffer/parcel tape around it a few turns to restrict the split and give the springiness you need, then push it gently back on making sure that the screw/bolt is free to turn ... just be a little more careful!)

For this job an old CD marker pen was pretty perfect, very slightly small but that only meant I needed to be a little more slow and gentle locating it right down over the head of the bolt - usefully snug as the head is not that deep. Once there it was held perfectly securely and I was able to finish undoing it and withdrew it very easily. The whole job from removing the bolt to replacing it again with the cluster back and a new bulb fitted was less than 5 minutes.

I hope this is useful to someone, and that the photos help - I presume they are thumbnails and will enlarge when clicked.

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HI Rickt - Thanks for the guide - it's not quite the same on my Audi A4 cabriolet from 2005 - but close enough to make your guide very worth while! Thanks