I am not sure if anyone will find this useful immediately, but I'm fairly certain that at some point, some time in the future, it will come in handy for either a member, or a desperate VW, Audi, or Porsche owner that Googles the right phrase.

The electrical harnesses in the 997 are made by Tyco, who OEMs wiring harnesses for VW and Audi. Porsche shares the same connectors.

When I recently tried to swap tail lights, I found that the plastic retaining clip was very brittle when Wisconsin temps fall in winter. The clip broke, and while the harness will hold together, vibrations could possible separate the two.

The culprit:





Cost of replacing entire rear wiring to replace single wiring broken harness - $2900 + $400 labor.

Cost of replacing rear wiring harness with salvage yard harness, then soldering the wiring - $250-300.

Using epoxy or adhesive - probably will crack off the next time you pull at the wiring harness.

Solution:

TYCO OEM distributors for VW and Audi:





How to do the swap correctly...ie without destroying the wiring, retaining clips, harness.

1. Release the secondary retainer:



2. Once the secondary retainer has been pulled, use either a wire terminal extractor or (in my case since the tool is $75-100) two unfolded staple loads.





3. Insert the release pins into the appropriate slots then wiggle the wiring out of each hole:



4. Replace the wiring into the slots one by one:



5. Finally, one of the wiring plugs is a blank - push out the white rubber seal and insert into the new harness...and then you are done!



Parts were ordered from a VW/Audi OEM distributor for Tyco: www worldimpex com

 

Fantastic, thanks for the heads up!