Moisture and mold in the tail light housing

[SlickFix]

So fellas,

The other day wifey dropped me off at work, and as she drove away, I was admiring the Avant and noticed that the right rear tail light was dimmer than the left. Since I replaced all the bulbs in both recently, I knew that the bulbs were good.

Upon closer inspection, I have moisture in the housing. To be more accurate, it had about 1/4" of standing water in the bottom of the housing. Not only that, but it looks like I have mold growing on the bottom of the housing, and it has darkened the plastic in front of the where the tail light bulb sits. This is what's causing the reduced light output.

My goal this weekend is to remove the mold, then seal up the housing with some caulking or silicone in order to save myself the price of a used tail light housing.

Does anyone know the best way to disassemble the housing? It seems to be glued together, but I'm not 100% certain. I don't want to just jump right in and start breaking plastic if I don't have to. My searches have come up with plenty of headlight modding, but no tail light threads.

You can see the mold in the pic below on the right side housing.

[87supraman]

I noticed mine was full up to the clear lens the other day. I may buy a used one to experiment with.

Sent from my SCH-I645

[SlickFix]

Well, I'm taking it back that the mold is the cause of the dimming. Upon even closer inspection, there is supposed to be a reflective finish on the inside of the housing where the bulb sits, but in the right side housing, this reflective surface has worn off and it's just red plastic now. This must be the true cause of the dimming. As suspected, the left side housing still has the full reflective finish.

I'm trying to think what kind of Ghetto mod I can do to restore the reflective qualities of the surface. I have some reflective duct tape, but the problem is that I only have a hole the size of a bulb in which to snake a couple of strips of reflective tape into the housing. I think I'll give that a shot, unless anyone has a better idea.

[SlickFix]

FAIL.

Plastered the whole interior with reflective duct tape, but it didn't brighten the bulb much. Guess it's time to order a used housing.

[diuvic]

FAIL.

Plastered the whole interior with reflective duct tape, but it didn't brighten the bulb much. Guess it's time to order a used housing.

Why don't you use some of that reflective contact paper? It's pretty much like a mirror.


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[SlickFix]

Why don't you use some of that reflective contact paper? It's pretty much like a mirror.


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I've never heard of it. Any idea where I can buy something like that?

I'm kinda surprised that the reflective duct tape didn't work. It seems very reflective to me, but it didn't seem to make any difference.

[diuvic]

I've never heard of it. Any idea where I can buy something like that?

I'm kinda surprised that the reflective duct tape didn't work. It seems very reflective to me, but it didn't seem to make any difference.

This seems like a good bet:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00725...110_SY165_QL70

I was going to use something similar for another non Audi related project where I needed to have something reflect light. I can't seem to find that though.


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[fR3ZNO]

Necro bump

Any documented fix for stopping the moisture and condensation buildup in the first place?

When I first bought my car, it was so bad that the board inside corroded. The first solution to that was replacing the pair with OEM Hella housings. After about a year or so, they started to show signs of moisture building up and not going away. Since I bought them from FCP, they sent me a replacement set via warranty.

But lately, I've noticed moisture buildup again. It goes away eventually, but I'd like to fix it once and for all.

Perhaps there isn't enough ventilation for the moisture to escape. Condensation forms due to a temperature difference between the warm moist air inside and colder air outside. So if the warmer air inside can't escape, then moisture in the air condensates on the inside of the lens.

So far, only found this thread where someone found a crack between the outer lens and the main housing which was letting moisture/water in. Also this video shows a different failure mode, but a fix as well: