Earlier this month, I scraped some money together and bought a new part for my car.

(Yes I know this is going to be a lame post, but deal with me here.)

I’ve been eying this part on ECS Tuning (www.ecstuning.com) for quite some time and I finally felt like it was time to upgrade the ol’ dome light in the 2000 Golf.

My mom’s 2006 Jetta has this little feature and I liked it ever since, and I was happy to find that I could install it on my Golf. The new dome lights up the sunroof dial pattern, dome light switches, and has 2 red LED ambient lighting sources to help light up the console at night – much like LED map lights in private planes, or fighter jets.

Now, this is the 2nd part I’ve ordered from ECS Tuning, the fog-lights being the first, so I wasn’t too surprised to discover that their online installation instructions weren’t comprehensive enough to do the job professionally enough, even as a DYI project. Thankfully, I have my trusty 2 ½ inch thick Bentley Publishing Service Manual.

ECS Tuning’s instructions didn’t mention much about removing the A-pillar trim on the drivers side, nor the sun-visor, the ‘OMG-Handle’ on the driver side, or the left-side panel on the dash (with the fuse box) – which I had to remove all in order to wire the car  to power the lighting module’s sunroof dial pattern, dome light switches, and the 2 red ambient LEDs.

The whole installation took about 20 to 25 minutes, but once again I was a bit disappointed with ECS Tuning’s installation instructions, but they do have quite a list of parts (both OEM/Factory and aftermarket) and I’m lucky to have the Factory Service Manual, so I guess it works out some how.

I’ll post pictures of the newly installed W8 Dome Light soonish.