LED Footwell Light Replacement

[Ree7e]

Hi all,

I want to replace the standard orange glowing interior footwell lights in my 2014 DS3.

I have read through a few threads on here and have decided to go for blue LED strips.

The process seems to be to 'splice' into the existing footwell light connection and replace with the LED strip lights.

Does anyone have experience in doing this please? if so can you provide step by step instructions?

I asked a local garage and they quoted £45.00 saying this would be an hour long job, seems like a 20 minute job to me from what I have read!?

Thanks in advance all!

[Massi93]

Hi Ree7e,

Yes i've done this in mine, i got 4 LED Strips and soldered them onto the actual unit itself that the bulbs go into. That way i can reverse it if i ever want to. I went for orange myself as i just wanted a brighter glow, but then i wasn't happy with the shade of orange and ended up supergluing red film over the LED strip to get a darker orange, but i may now re-do the whole thing with RGB strips. I have 1 strip in each footwell, and 1 strip under each seat so the rear footwells are lit too

If you're set on Blue, this can be a super cheap thing to do, and you can technically get it done with just the LED strips and some electrical tape, all together costing you a few quid if you're happy to wait a week or two for shipping like i did!

Link to the blue version of the strips i used here - https://www.amazon.co.uk/SODIAL-Truc...Y8XV1CKPSEBM8W

There are many alternative choices however, i think you can probably pick up some with Prime delivery for little over £5.

Anyway, a brief run-down of how i did it.

-Undo the 3 button clips holding the footwell "ceiling" piece in place, and pop out the light unit while it's still plugged in (you can do this without removing the carpet piece if you want, i just found it easier without it in the way)
-Switch on aux power to the car and turn on dipped headlights, which will activate the mood lighting.
-Unplug the wire from the light unit
-Grab an LED strip and then just test which way round the wires need to be for the strip to light up. Putting them the wrong way round won't damage anything, it just won't light up.
-Once you know which way round they go, label them up and then fix them together however you choose (solder, splice, shrink wrap, electrical tape etc etc)
-The find somewhere to run the spare wire out of sight and fit the carpet "ceiling" piece back in place (i'd suggest keeping the light cover in place too)
-With that all fit back in place and the strip ready to go, choose somewhere to stick it and you're good to go!

I hope that's easy enough to follow. That's just from memory when i did it about 6 months ago and i've never done a how-to before. I think i have some pictures somewhere so if i find them i'll post them up as well, but any other questions let me know.

Something i considered doing (but ultimately didn't do as i couldn't find them for less than a tenner and wasn't sure they'd be bright enough with an orange w5w bulb) is to find some replacement plastic covers in the clear colour rather than the orange/red colour that comes in the footwell. I believe it's the same as the one in the boot. You could then just get some Blue w5w bulbs and voila, even easier!

[Massi93]

Found a couple pictures, although not the most helpful.

As i said, i soldered mine onto the bulb fixture itself as it gives a left and right, positive and negative connection to the bulb, so it does the same to bare wire. (the extra wire is cause i have 2 strips wired up each side, one for the front and one for the rear footwells.

This is where i chose to mount my strips so that they aren't visible. The sticky backing isn't very good though so you might need some good 3M tape or something as a replacement.


And this was the end result (you can see what i mean about the colour not being how i wanted) It's much closer to the standard orange tone given by the centre console lights now that i tinted it with red film. This just gives you an idea the light output of the 12 LED strips.


Hope that's of some help!

[Funky]

Really nice write up and pictures Massi93. Thanks for posting.

[Ree7e]

Massi93 thank you so much for your response and pictures too! That is a great help thank you.

I went for 2 blue LED strips which cost £4.95 for both. I’m going to attempt this today! I think I will splice into the existing footwell connection.

I’ll post some pics when completed!

again, thank you for your help

[Ree7e]

Hi guys, just a quick update and to show you the LED strips I fitted in the footwells. It was really easy thanks toMassi93
and only took 10 minutes to do both footwells. I also installed a blue LED w5w bulb in the interior roof light which gives a nice blue glow when the car is unlocked and doors are opened.

[chr15t1an]

Hi guys, this is my interior. First i wanted to replace the bulb in the orange case, but then i decided to throw it out. So installed simple LED Stripes from Amazon which i can controll with a Remote
Also I installed this week this ambilight from ebay which i can control with my phone

[Funky]

Very nice chr15t1an. Looks very bright. Welcome to the forum too.

[Ree7e]

Looks great chr15t1an ! what are the lights you used for the doors and around where the gear stick is? I'd like to do this myself!

[chr15t1an]

HI guys, I used some ambience light from ebay. I can only send you the german link where i bought it. https://www.ebay.de/itm/LED-RGB-Ambi...53.m2749.l2649

[Cake]

Nice write up Massi93. where did you place the led strip and wire for the rear footwell? just hide the wire by the center console?