You will need to remove the lower section of the interior trim first. In the photo below note that red circles are screws, and red rectangles are spring clips. Two of the screws are located inside the indentations toward the outside of the gate, and two of them can be found in the warning triangle area. I had to remove my triangle to get access to the screws as an FYI.
Once you remove the lower screws, you can just pull on the trim piece to disengage the spring clips. Even with all the spring clips disengaged and the screws removed the panel will still be held in place by two lock tabs that connect to the trim that goes around the window. I am not sure the best way to get around this other than to pull in the middle of the panel to bow it which should allow the lock tabs to slip off the window trim and remove the panel. I was not aware of these so I used the pull real hard and swear a lot method. It seemed to be fairly successful. Why Audi would choose to lock a panel that needs to be removed to access the fasteners to remove the panel it is secured to is beyond me. That is why I modified the design, which in my opinion as an engineer, was plain stupid.
The pictures below should help illustrate what I am talking about.
What I did to make this easier in the future is grind off these silly lock tabs so I can actually remove the panel normally without all the cursing. I have had it on the car like this for a while and the panels fit up snug still and there is not rattling/vibration caused from removing these tabs. I recommend doing this, but you do not have to.
The upper trim is pretty easy now. Remove the screws exposed at the bottom of the trim piece that were hiding under the lower panel before and then just pull as the rest of the panel is held on by spring clips. I have some images to show where they are so you don't have to guess.
As you can see there are two spring clips on each side of the window, and four on top. After you remove this trim you can get some access to the back of the light and help coax it out. If you pull on the front of the light, you will most likely break off the lens as it is ridiculously fragile. The spring clips on the light are also VERY tight so it is pretty hard to remove the light. Good luck! Mine would not come out with light coaxing so I just said forget about it and went for the gold.
Mine looked like this when removed :)
Luckily I took the trim out so I could vacuum out all the little bits. Also before you put your new light in, put a lot of pressure on the spring clips to make them weaker. They are about 10x stronger than the need to be or else my opening in the sheet metal is at the very minimum of tolerance. This will make it a little easier to remove in the future if you have to, and it will still be plenty strong to secure the light in there.
If you think it would be wise to fit a B7 brake light in the opening so you do not need to trim your votex spoiler. Think again: http://www.audizine.com/forum/showth...pics-inside%29
I put this thread here because I thought it would get viewed more by the people who need it. Also, none of my posts in the DIY section have been approved so I thought it was a waste to post there. Does anyone even run that forum?
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Originally Posted by davis2003
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