After reading several posts and suffering through another winter, where night seems to last 20 hours a day, added courtesy lights to the door bottom. The hard part of the install is getting the wiring from inside the car through the door boot. With the wiring in the place, the rest goes fairly smoothly. The courtesy lights in the 1 Gen Vibe used a ground based activation system. Their is always 12v positive to the roof dome/courtesy lights. When the door opens the cars lighting control module "opens" the ground circuit for the courtesy lights, then after predetermined time increases resistance in the ground (through transistor circuit) to dim the lights. To make this mod it is essential you run two wires for the door lights, one will be 12v the other being the factory on/off ground. Why did the engineers do this? Safety, its easier to protect a ground activated circuit than a +12v source circuit.
In the A pillar (support in front of driver where windshield is attached) you will find the wiring harness running down the pillar. Their is a heavy jacket covering the wiring, use nips or small cutters to remove the jacket, it will be tough. Using this location is not only easier to find the wires, but also make connections. Otherwise you would have to tear apart the dash. Their is also plenty of room at the base of the pillar to drop the wires (feed top down let gravity do the work) behind the dash to connect to the wires you have run out to the door.
A Pillar courtesy wire colors:
Red with yellow trace = Door Trigger (ground activated)
White with Blue trace = 12v positive (on all the time, even with car off)
I pulled new wire, Blue for 12v and Orange for ground, trying to match the factory colors
I chose some high output standard size 5mm LED's, they require roughly a 3/16" drill bit. Used flat tip LED's to maximize placement, a round tip may have interfered with trim or weather stripping.
White wide angle LED's, model: RL5-W15120
https://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinf ... /252/1179/
Resistors: 100 Ohm 5W Audio Grade Resistor
http://www.parts-express.com/100-ohm-5w ... e--015-100
I used a 1 watt resistors in mine, but still thought it was generating to much heat.
Circuit used: Ground-LED-LED-LED-100 Ohm 5w Resistor +12v
Link to handy tool to configure LED's in other series, parallel combinations:
http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz
Rule of thumb when adding LED's to the door:
-think about were you want the light,
-were will the weatherstripping or other parts of the car hit the door,
-how to route wires for later access
-keep out of the cars moving parts or getting pinched.
Video of courtesy door light installation:
http://youtu.be/rII9X2pQBZI
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