Replacing a tail light (again)

TL;DR That's the third tail light on the left hand side

Third time the charm, who knows... it all began after a whole 2 weeks and was replaced under manufacturer warranty.  And then again earlier this year, before the end of the one year purchase warranty.

As we were placing a sizeable order to repair the front end after my close encounter of the wild kind, we made sure to add a replacement LED tail light to the list.

I got the car back from my friends at House of Speed last Friday (Aug 29th) after rushing the body repair specialist a bit, and decided I would replace that tail light by myself. That's a very quick job once you've done it once or twice already.

Anyway, as per my previous post on the subject used as a reference, the 5.5mm allen bit and a 8mm socket were used, this time with the micro-ratchet. No need to lift the car or remove the rear wheel. Nice and easy during a short break in business-casual outfit.

In the meantime I had the opportunity to look under the skirt of "UIL 737", the burgundy 485 FE press-car. It happens that that one has rubber grommets closing the 32mm holes in the wheel arches. I knew I was onto something when I had that idea for mine. 

While I'm not 100% convinced the water damage comes from the back of the LED units, the dirt and grime leave little doubt about their origin. My plan is to keep the new unit sealed until it gets moist inside, and only drill two holes on the bottom once wet. That innocuous experiment will finally tell me if the water ingress comes from the back (along the wiring loom I guess...), or from the front somehow.

 

Extra information about 300L0020A (power consumption at 14.5V for each light) :
- tail light 0.2A = 2.9W
- brake light 0.17A = 2.5W
- fog light 0.5A = 7.3W
- turn light 1.64A at 11.2V = 18W -- keeping it compatible with a standard flasher unit