Cracks in rear light plastic - internal

MattyS · Saturday at 1:06 PM

Hi folks,

I was just about to plug my car in ready for a journey tomorrow, and I noticed two parts of the left rear brake plastic were damaged. The damage itself almost looks like a stone has come up and hit the light cluster but upon inspection the damage is internal and not external. See the picture attached, will be contacting the dealer to discuss options.

Has anyone with similar had repairs done under warranty or should I brace for monetary impact?

ReintjeWA · Saturday at 2:21 PM

That is indeed strange, hope they'll fix it for you under warranty mate

Yandards · Sunday at 1:03 PM

MattyS said:
Hi folks,

I was just about to plug my car in ready for a journey tomorrow, and I noticed two parts of the left rear brake plastic were damaged. The damage itself almost looks like a stone has come up and hit the light cluster but upon inspection the damage is internal and not external. See the picture attached, will be contacting the dealer to discuss options.

Has anyone with similar had repairs done under warranty or should I brace for monetary impact?

View attachment 36056

Got exactly the same issue that I've just spotted today when washing it - both sides, all internal cracks on a car that's 1 year and 10 months old.
No doubt they will argue it's impact damage which is utter rubbish.
Cracks all propagating from an edge, edge is very difficult to hit with the bodywork profile and no signs of any external chips through impact etc. Plus both sides in similar locations and combined with the type of polymer says crap design failure.

Diggsy · Sunday at 1:43 PM

Those almost look like stress cracks - possibly caused by poor positioning of the fittings, not enough padding, and/or over-tightening.

MattyS · Sunday at 7:07 PM

Yeah not good at all. Minor, but certainly worth getting sorted before they escalate. Interestingly, when driving I heard a loud crack noise from the rear of the car. I thought it could have been a stone, but clearly not. I thought maybe got weather might be the cause.

Yandards · Monday at 11:32 AM

MattyS said:
Yeah not good at all. Minor, but certainly worth getting sorted before they escalate. Interestingly, when driving I heard a loud crack noise from the rear of the car. I thought it could have been a stone, but clearly not. I thought maybe got weather might be the cause.

Suspect they will keep cracking over time and the origin point does look like it starts where the plastic is joined to the rear housing for the cluster.
Could be condensation freezing a little and stressing the assembly - wouldn't be at all surprised if others were like this but folks haven't noticed yet.

MattyS · Monday at 11:44 AM

Yandards said:
Suspect they will keep cracking over time and the origin point does look like it starts where the plastic is joined to the rear housing for the cluster.
Could be condensation freezing a little and stressing the assembly - wouldn't be at all surprised if others were like this but folks haven't noticed yet.

I've been doing some googling and there is an Audi forum where people had the same (although this was back in 2014 from what I can see)

Yandards · Monday at 11:55 AM

The type of plastic they've selected for the outer, transparent section is very brittle, gives good clarity and fairly scratch resistant as the trade off.
Lot of these cars are probably on company car or lease schemes and many folks don't wash their cars opting for the car wash services that seem to be everywhere these days. TL

R of that would be it's not obvious until the cracks get fairly large.

MattyS · Monday at 1:25 PM

I've just sent the dealership my picture of damage so will update when I get a response re warranty etc

Edit: Took into the dealer so their staff can take photos, and I'm glad I did because he spotted more similar damage all across the left side light cluster. Now we wait for the warranty response.

Cracks in rear light plastic - internal

MattyS

Established Member

ReintjeWA

Established Member

Yandards

Established Member

Attachments

Diggsy

Prominent Member

MattyS

Established Member

Yandards

Established Member

MattyS

Established Member

Yandards

Established Member

MattyS

Established Member

Similar threads

Are you enjoying your MG4?

Yes

I'm in the middle

No

Latest MG EVs video