How my trusted mechanic tried to save me Rs 1.5 lakh expense on my Audi

I eventually had to buy the new part but the fact that he invested his time & effort into it & also refused to charge anything for the failed attempt is really commendable.

BHPian IanNazareth recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Hi Guys! This is an update of the first real expenses I've incurred over the last 2 years I've driven the A3.

A couple of days ago while driving behind a lorry during dusk I noticed the DRL glow on the back of the truck was missing on my left. That's when I realized it had turned completely light yellow. Fortunately, the other side was good to go, or so I thought, more on this later. This was only the DRL turning yellow and the light functioning completely normal.

Here is how it looked.

Over the next few days, I visited my trusted mechanic who suggested that the only way to solve it was to get the light replaced. An approximate of 1.5L per light. A quick search online came out with the same figures.

We tried various other things like going into the computers and switching off the DRLs altogether to look symmetrical to no use. There was also a video of someone who had fixed the same issue. We tried an experimental procedure of taking off the light and found the tube to be burnt by the DRL. Basically, the way these operate is that there is a bright DRL chip at one end that powers the entire plastic translucent tube to make it glow.

This is the video that we referred to.

His light looked like this.

Here is the burnt DRL tube on my headlight after opening it up.

Here is how our light came out after cleaning the DRL chip.

After a few hours, the light went back to yellow and I just bought a new one from a dealer in Delhi who shipped it to Mumbai in 1 Day. We had it installed the next day and here is the result.

Notice the earlier one looks yellow in comparison to the new one made in Taiwan import. I will probably need to swap this out too now but at least they are both equally bright.

A good thing with the headlight was that these were halogens on my car, the global models have full LEDs which are almost 3-4 times the cost. This is something I came to know of while reading through forums on how to fix the issue.

I feel very confident with Mr Qasim Shirazi who owns Shirazi Automotive @Borivali & helped me conduct an experimental procedure of opening up the light. It was worth a try. He refused to charge me for the failed attempt too considering it was a lost labor effort to open and put back on while we then waited for the part, that I insisted on.

Big shout out to him and his team, always has a couple of Germans lying around being fixed any time of the day. He laughingly explained to me that if the service centers did their job, people wouldn't need him.

True!

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