Color Matched Sidemarkers

Here’s another quick and easy mod I did to my car to make it look cleaner and give it that “Euro” look – color-matched sidemarkers. You may remember a similar mod from my A4, only this time they’re paint matched instead of just clear for an even cleaner look. In Europe, there are no sidemarkers/reflectors required in the front bumper, and naturally none of the cars built for the UK market have these – in the US; however, our Department of Transportation mandates them as a safety feature. I think they’re ugly, and I find their value as a safety feature to be dubious as a best – I’ve never heard of a life being saved by these, but feel free to chime in and correct me otherwise – so I wanted to eliminate them from my car.

Originally my car had amber reflectors, which were immediately replaced with clear/white colored reflectors I had from my A4. While the clear reflectors blended in nicely with my light silver metallic A4, they didn’t blend quite as nicely with my red S4 – they stood out, and while looking less obnoxious than the orange sidemarkers, they didn’t blend in well enough for me. I had my trusted body shop, Phoenix Collision & Custom Paint, color match my amber sidemarkers while they were off the car, and then snapped them back in. I followed the same instructions as I originally did in this post with my A4.

My favorite part is that from afar, you can’t tell there is anything there at all. It appears as if my bumper came with no reflectors, which is what I want. Up closer you can tell they’re there, but they’re so subtle that they don’t really detract from other focal parts of the car like the bumper, lighting, wheels or suspension.