Jerry Feather

I can imagine Nicole saying something like "OH, thank you , Sean! Finally an answer after only five and a half years. If it is loose, tighten something. Why didn't I think of that."

That kind of reminds me of my telling the chief Judge a while back about one of my ailments where my shoulder hurt when I put my arm like so. He said that was like the guy telling his doctor that something hurt when he did "this" and the doctor said "don't do that."

Actually I almost gave Nicole similar advise to Sean's but including the use of Lexal, similar to silicon sealant in a caulking tube, but I don't know about how heat resistant it is. Then I noticed that Joe Taylor suggested the actual age of this thread.

Nicole

I actually haven't looked at this in a while. I'm in the process of finding a new set of tail lights that are un-cracked, so I can manipulate them with translucent paint. So far, I have one right one without a crack, and two left ones with cracks in the housings...

I would have put LEDs in there a long time ago, but I'm wondering how the bulb monitoring system reacts to them.

SeanR

Drill some holes in the bumper, inside where the light sits. This allows the water to drain and not sit in there. Helps alleviate the condensation inside the housing.

JoeTaylor

Hi Everyone,

After reading all the replies, I went down to get some JB Weld at the auto parts place... but when I saw it was a 2-part epoxy, I bought the RTV Red high temp silicone.

My thought was that the RTV would more forgiving than the epoxy (or super glue) and the sealant would allow me to squish the aluminum foil around and smooth it out.

Also, I didn't want to be stuck in the garage with my finger superglued to the tail light housing.. haha.

I thought the aluminum foil was a good idea to dissipate heat from the bulb and reduce any further cracking.

Before I started I checked the passenger side tail light again, big crack. So I thought it best to check the drivers side tail light too, I found an even bigger crack, geez. (See Photos 2 & 3 below.)

I cut a strip of aluminum foil and trimmed it to slip in the hole for the bulb, cut it to length to match the depth of the tail light. Gooped it up with the Red RTV and inserted it into the tail light. Then I used my finger to smooth the foil out and make sure that I had good contact with patch/silicone and the tail light housing.

Photos below show the 1) tail lights out, 2) crack in passenger side brake tail light, 3) crack in drivers side brake tail light, 4) aluminum foil patch glued in place on the passenger side and 5) the gear, heavy duty aluminum foil, Red RTV high temp silicone and scissors.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. Once everything cures up, I will let you know how it all turns out.

VTY,
Joe Taylor

Nicole

Thanks for sharing, Joe!

hernanca

For added reference - a few more pictures of melted/cracked S4 tail lights that I recently took, when selling a "nice" set.

Except for these housing cracks, which seem the norm (I thought maybe wrong bulbs were used), these tail lights were very nice.

Interesting that the threaded stud is also located near here - the stress and the heat may both be culprits.

Alan

Like this?

The main reason for this was actually to avoid water streaking after every wash due to water accumulating there.

Alan

Alan

This is ancient of course - but ROW/Euro & USA are very different wrt tail lights.

Turn signals and reversing lights are the same.

Brakes - on a USA car the inside lower elment is a dual filament (5W/21W) combination marker & brake light, the other 2 lower segments middle & outside are markers (5W) only.

On ROW/Euro cars the inside segment is a single filament (21W) brake light only the middle segment is a marker (5W) only and the outside segment is a dual filament marker & fog light (5W/21W).

This is a very different look... also USA cars have 26W dissipation at night in the brake light segment (when active)... ROW only 21W.

Now ROW outside segments can also hit 26W extended use but fog lights overall get used quite rarely - and usually even then only when the ambient temp is low...

Alan

JoeTaylor

Carlos,

Those are some nasty looking cracks... just like the ones in my car.

Joe

hernanca

Hey Joe,

Yep, but the tail lights looked great on the lens side! I wanted to point out that it may not be obvious that there is a problem lurking there. Though, I don't know what the longer term results may be if they are left as is, other than the moisture problems.

It would be interesting to see if anyone has an S4/GT/GTS tail light without the housing cracks in the area under the back-up section.

Also interesting to see what appears to be different exterior housing colors, unless it is just lighting/camera differences.