Installation of Door Warning Lights for Mk2 Tiguan (DIY)
I recently installed a set of 4 door warning lights on my 2017 Tiguan Sportline (Highline). It was a little different to some of the other write-ups I've seen so will post here so it may help others looking to do this mod in the future.
This is the kit that I bought which included wires, housings and LED globes: RWSYPL LED Car Door Warning Light + Cable Plug Harness For VW Jetta MK5 Golf 5 6 7 Passat B6 B7 Tiguan Superb EOS CC 3AD 947 411|Signal Lamp| - AliExpress
The lights in this kit are OK, however the wires for the front doors are too short. I'm not sure if other kits have longer wires but I needed to add some extra length to these to fit well (have some slack so that you can undo the plugs when removing the door trims). Also be mindful that the wires in this kit have 2 different types of pin connectors on the ends. You'll need to make sure you use the correct one on the rear doors where you need to install one of the pins into the connector. Probably not a bad idea to start with the rear doors and/or if you chop off the pins leave a "tail" on it so you can use them later if required.
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Front doors:
First you need to undo 3 bolts holding on the door trims. There's one M30 torx in the middle of the door and one underneath the door handle cover. Remove the cover with a pry tool. There's a small recess at the rear of the handle to start the pry tool. Also one plastic 10mm "wing nut" at the bottom of the door. Get a 10mm spanner and turn it 90 degrees so the tabs are vertical and no longer locking the trim in place.
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Get a trim removal tool behind the door cover and pry the door trim off the clips holding it on. Once the clips are undone, lift up off the top of the door/seating near the glass and carefully undo all the connectors between the door and door trim.
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Remove the quad-lock connector from the front door controller module. Remove the blue housing from the outside of the connector to access the wires inside. You may have to cut off a zip tie from around the end first (if there's one on there).
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Next you want to connect the wires for your door warning lights into the wiring that is already in the harness. Pin 5 = ground/brown wire, Pin 16 = +12V / red wire. There's a number of different ways to do this but I soldered these rather than using connectors. I also had to extend the wires that were supplied in the kit around 15-20cm to give some "slack" and allow me to route the wires along the other existing wiring harness. Make sure you tape up any bare wires/connections and then put the connector back together.
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Put the door back together, leaving the cable out the hole for the door warning light. Lastly install the light and test. You may want to test the light first before putting the door car back on fully just to make sure it is operating correctly. Given that you're cutting into existing wires you likely won't need to do any coding here. If it doesn't work try turning the ignition on as one time I needed to do this as I think I disconnected some of the door wiring before the car switched "off" and the door control module got it's knickers in a knot.
Rear doors:
This is where there's quite a difference to some of the other write-ups as many of the other write-ups online indicate that there is no rear door controller module and you need to cut into some of the other wires and use them as an alternative signal to run the door warning lights. As it turns out the Tiguan (Highline model at least) has rear door controller module fitted so you can instead wire the lights up directly to the module and enable using VCDS/OBD11.
Rear door trim removal is similar to the front door, however the tricky thing is the 10mm "wing nut" is hidden underneath the "reflector".
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Connections are Pin 12 for +12V (red wire) and Pin 13 for GND (brown wire). You will need to use one of the pinned wires to fit into the connector (pin 12) as pin 13 (GND) already has a wire in it that you'll need to splice into.
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When fitting the light into the door you'll need to modify the plastic moulding to allow the rear of the light and connector to fit.
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Install ctd next post....
Installation of Door Warning Lights for Mk2 Tiguan (DIY)