Midwest Light Creations- HID Headlights and Retrofit Kits (Headlights by Jeff)

Geobmx4life

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 10, 2009
Location
Kananaskis Alberta Canada
TDI
2005 Golf Malone tuned VNT 17, FMIC
Mkiv golf headlights

Hi Jeff, sent you a pm, curious if the Golf mkiv headlights have the bixenon high beams in the projector as well as the regular high beams on the inside regular high. Or if anyone who has purchased a pair know.
 

smelly621

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2008
Location
Sonoma County, CA
TDI
2001 Golf, 2003 Tacoma
Hey Geo- I've got a pair on my MKIV golf, and indeed they have quad high beam capability. It's pretty impressive light output for what is in my case a 16 year old vehicle. Also recommend the glass lenses, they make the plastic lenses look cheesy in comparison.
 

Geobmx4life

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 10, 2009
Location
Kananaskis Alberta Canada
TDI
2005 Golf Malone tuned VNT 17, FMIC
Thanks

Hey Geo- I've got a pair on my MKIV golf, and indeed they have quad high beam capability. It's pretty impressive light output for what is in my case a 16 year old vehicle. Also recommend the glass lenses, they make the plastic lenses look cheesy in comparison.
Perfect, and yeah I have glass on the ones I did, but the Morimoto reflective material peeled and the RetroFit Source refused to warrantee...Jeff's have always been impressive!
 
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biohazardtj

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 17, 2013
Location
Port Elgin,ONT
TDI
2000,jetta/2005,wagon
hey Jeff, shoot me a PM with some options. I lost another bulb and think its time to upgrade to a newer version. can my housings be retrofitted or do I need to buy new everything? I believe im running version 1 of these things, I like the newer lenses and the use of factory harness.

cheers!
 

Geobmx4life

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 10, 2009
Location
Kananaskis Alberta Canada
TDI
2005 Golf Malone tuned VNT 17, FMIC
Vacatio? ;)

Just ordered a set of Golf 25th anniversary headlights....excited to get them, cheaper than I can make them, and supporting a great vendor!
 
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PETR0L

Member
Joined
Oct 1, 2008
Location
EAStsIDE .:
TDI
2003 24v 2.8L GLi
Hello. I've tried to get on the web site via the link and no site available.
Also tried to type it in via google and nothing
Are you still on?
Need something some headlights for nk4 Jetta. Please advise
 
Joined
Oct 4, 2010
Location
Columbus, OH
TDI
2003
^The site seems to work for me. I've heard some people say that Safari on iphone has trouble sometimes..not sure if that is what you are using. You can call me at 614-653-8434 if you continue to have trouble getting on the site.
 

jstn

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2009
Location
norton, ma
TDI
gone to the dark side :)
Would like to provide my feedback on my experience working with Midwest Light Creations...

Overall, I cannot recommend them based on my experience. I had a handful of issues and my communication with Jeff seemed to be like I was bothering him.
I purchased my retrofits in the fall of 2015.

The most serious issue is that the reflector unit that the projector is mounted to on the driver's side is loose and the projector is shaking. I sent an inquiry and was told that it vibrates possibly because my car is a diesel, however the passenger side projector cut off is perfectly fine and doesn't vibrate... ok?

Secondly, the high beams on the passenger side didn't work due to a faulty connection to the actuator, which I had to cut and resplice on my own. Fine, that happens...

I also noticed that the backing to the headlights were drilled out and the grommets didn't fit. I had to apply some silicon and tape to ensure mostoir didn't enter the housings... pretty bootleg.

Lastly, I had issues with bulbs going out on the passenger side, which turned out to be a ballast which melted and nearly caught fire. Mike blamed the bulbs which weren't even a year old, so I bought a brand new set from Retrofit Resoruce... SAME issues. I was done with the runaround.

At this point I was done trying to work with Jeff. He would provide me with 1, maybe 2 things to look at. I would tell him what I found and then he would tell me to look at a few others things. This would drag out the diagnosis processs to several days worth of time. Not everyone has the time to spend hours a day tinerking with headlights that should have worked from the get go. This made me very frustrated and he seemed very annoyed by my inquiries.

I ended up installing an h1 morimoto hid relay kit to replace the failed ballasts and I'm learning to ignore true shaky projector, although it drive's me wild...

I'm sure my experience is an outlier, but given what I spent on the headlights, the only salvageable item in my opinion are the glass helix lenses.

Going forward, I will be going with the retrofit lights from Mike at VX Tuning who makes some very high end retrofit headlights with Morimoto projectors and rely kits. He's also working on a quad bi-xenon kit for the mk4 which looks very impressive.

I don't mean to speak negatively about a vendor here, but I was and am beyond disappointed with both the quality of product and more importantly quality of service I received from Jeff. It was wasted money... never again. YMMV.

Justin
 

UhOh

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Dec 24, 2014
Location
PNW
TDI
2000 & 2003 Golf GLS (2005 Mercedes E320 CDI)
A long(er) term report on the installation in the daughter's wagon.

All is working just fine. There was, as I'd noted, a slight QA issue (which I resolved) and a problem which was introduced due to the installation of fog lights, something that was NOT associated with these HID retrofits: the takeaway here is to be mindful when making multiple changes at one time!

I'm currently contemplating upgrades to my Golfs' headlights, though uncertain whether I want to go with HIDs: primary aim is to get fogs on both, and glass lenses on the wife's (I recently installed glass lenses on mine).
 

PETR0L

Member
Joined
Oct 1, 2008
Location
EAStsIDE .:
TDI
2003 24v 2.8L GLi
Thank you very much for taking time to review

Would like to provide my feedback on my experience working with Midwest Light Creations...
Overall, I cannot recommend them based on my experience. I had a handful of issues and my communication with Jeff seemed to be like I was bothering him.
I purchased my retrofits in the fall of 2015.
The most serious issue is that the reflector unit that the projector is mounted to on the driver's side is loose and the projector is shaking. I sent an inquiry and was told that it vibrates possibly because my car is a diesel, however the passenger side projector cut off is perfectly fine and doesn't vibrate... ok?
Secondly, the high beams on the passenger side didn't work due to a faulty connection to the actuator, which I had to cut and resplice on my own. Fine, that happens...
I also noticed that the backing to the headlights were drilled out and the grommets didn't fit. I had to apply some silicon and tape to ensure mostoir didn't enter the housings... pretty bootleg.
Lastly, I had issues with bulbs going out on the passenger side, which turned out to be a ballast which melted and nearly caught fire. Mike blamed the bulbs which weren't even a year old, so I bought a brand new set from Retrofit Resoruce... SAME issues. I was done with the runaround.
At this point I was done trying to work with Jeff. He would provide me with 1, maybe 2 things to look at. I would tell him what I found and then he would tell me to look at a few others things. This would drag out the diagnosis processs to several days worth of time. Not everyone has the time to spend hours a day tinerking with headlights that should have worked from the get go. This made me very frustrated and he seemed very annoyed by my inquiries.
I ended up installing an h1 morimoto hid relay kit to replace the failed ballasts and I'm learning to ignore true shaky projector, although it drive's me wild...
I'm sure my experience is an outlier, but given what I spent on the headlights, the only salvageable item in my opinion are the glass helix lenses.
Going forward, I will be going with the retrofit lights from Mike at VX Tuning who makes some very high end retrofit headlights with Morimoto projectors and rely kits. He's also working on a quad bi-xenon kit for the mk4 which looks very impressive.
I don't mean to speak negatively about a vendor here, but I was and am beyond disappointed with both the quality of product and more importantly quality of service I received from Jeff. It was wasted money... never again. YMMV.
Justin
..been looking around for set for a while and it can get confusing.
Thanks again
 

ottoman

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2005
Location
Minnesota
TDI
2003 Jetta wagon ALH
Been a while since there have been any replies here and I have received no reply to questions sent in the website. Are these lights still being sold?
 

JohnTso

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 27, 2004
Location
Wisconsin
TDI
2003 Desert Jetta & 2015 Passat SEL
I think Jeff needs to update members as to the status of his business.

I was planning to purchase a set of E-codes to install this spring, but Jeff hasn't been very active here these days. I guess I wait to see what's up.
 

jstn

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2009
Location
norton, ma
TDI
gone to the dark side :)
If you want a real set of retrofit HID headlights, contact Mike Ojeda at VXTuning. He has just released a quad set of bi-xenon headlights for the mk4 Jetta.

I think Jeff's silence says enough about his interest in support existing and future customers.

https://www.vxtuning.com/

justin
 
Joined
Oct 4, 2010
Location
Columbus, OH
TDI
2003
>I think Jeff's silence says enough about his interest in support existing and future customers.

In the words of Luke Skywalker, "Impressive... Every word in that sentence was wrong." Joking aside, you should see how many emails, texts, and voicemails, and phone calls I respond to on a daily basis. That, plus actually building the lights takes up an extraordinary amount of time, to say nothing of packing and shipping, managing inventory, etc., and as a one-man shop..well you get the idea. Given I have a 5-month-old child (my first) that I think deserves some of my attention especially in the evenings, and given that October-December orders basically triple as the days get shorter and I have to devote more time to actually building sets, I end up having to prioritize. Urgent tech support inquiries are a priority, followed by non-urgent tech support, followed by order inquiries. I literally answer texts and emails at all hours of the day aside from when I sleep, drive, or am building headlights. I have not been active here because to be honest, this thread hasn't been active. In the past 4 months there have been 7 posts..three of which have been you stating your dissatisfaction with your order and plugging another vendor (which I won't get into at all..been there and done that). So no, I have not posted here much recently, but that has nothing to do with not being interested in or committed to supporting existing and future customers, and everything to do with the fact that 99% (not an exaggeration) of the communications I receive from said customers come to me through email, text, and phone rather than this forum, that I am in the middle of managing my busy season as far as orders go, and that I am adjusting to life with my first child. It's not ideal to be sure, but such is life.

In regard to the other inquiries, yes I am still doing these full steam. No, I do not have anything for the MKIV Passat, and I don't any time in the near future.
 

sackman

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 30, 2009
Location
Oregon
TDI
2(2003) 2Dr ARL/ASV
>I think Jeff's silence says enough about his interest in support existing and future customers.

In the words of Luke Skywalker, "Impressive... Every word in that sentence was wrong." Joking aside, you should see how many emails, texts, and voicemails, and phone calls I respond to on a daily basis. That, plus actually building the lights takes up an extraordinary amount of time, to say nothing of packing and shipping, managing inventory, etc., and as a one-man shop..well you get the idea. Given I have a 5-month-old child (my first) that I think deserves some of my attention especially in the evenings, and given that October-December orders basically triple as the days get shorter and I have to devote more time to actually building sets, I end up having to prioritize. Urgent tech support inquiries are a priority, followed by non-urgent tech support, followed by order inquiries. I literally answer texts and emails at all hours of the day aside from when I sleep, drive, or am building headlights. I have not been active here because to be honest, this thread hasn't been active. In the past 4 months there have been 7 posts..three of which have been you stating your dissatisfaction with your order and plugging another vendor (which I won't get into at all..been there and done that). So no, I have not posted here much recently, but that has nothing to do with not being interested in or committed to supporting existing and future customers, and everything to do with the fact that 99% (not an exaggeration) of the communications I receive from said customers come to me through email, text, and phone rather than this forum, that I am in the middle of managing my busy season as far as orders go, and that I am adjusting to life with my first child. It's not ideal to be sure, but such is life.

In regard to the other inquiries, yes I am still doing these full steam. No, I do not have anything for the MKIV Passat, and I don't any time in the near future.

Your lights are awesome Jeff!! :D
 

jstn

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2009
Location
norton, ma
TDI
gone to the dark side :)
In the past 4 months there have been 7 posts..three of which have been you stating your dissatisfaction with your order and plugging another vendor (which I won't get into at all..been there and done that).
correction -- dissatisfaction with your customer service and lack of caring. the product itself isn't that bad, aside from the HID kit. as you'll recall, we went back and forth over email for a couple weeks, to try and resolve one of the wiring issues, that i ultimately diagnosed and resolved myself. as i stated in a previous post, you wrote off the vibrating light pattern (cracked headlight bucket mount) because my car's "a diesel". :rolleyes:

justin
 

aja8888

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Dec 25, 2007
Location
Texas..RETIRED 12/31/17
TDI
Out of TDI's
correction -- dissatisfaction with your customer service and lack of caring. the product itself isn't that bad, aside from the HID kit. as you'll recall, we went back and forth over email for a couple weeks, to try and resolve one of the wiring issues, that i ultimately diagnosed and resolved myself. as i stated in a previous post, you wrote off the vibrating light pattern (cracked headlight bucket mount) because my car's "a diesel". :rolleyes:
justin
We hear you, maybe you should just move on, or are you the type of person who likes to see himself in print?

Why don't you try communicating with someone who sells you a Chinese set of HID's that doesn't work or just falls apart? Haha!

99% of Jeff's customers here are highly satisfied.
 
Joined
Oct 4, 2010
Location
Columbus, OH
TDI
2003
>as you'll recall, we went back and forth over email for a couple weeks, to try and resolve one of the wiring issues, that i ultimately diagnosed and resolved myself. as i stated in a previous post, you wrote off the vibrating light pattern (cracked headlight bucket mount) because my car's "a diesel"

Similar to the above, I don't think this is really a fair statement. I have an email from you on 11.8.15 stating that you had an issue with the high beam on one light, and that you didn't have parking lights on either headlight (but that the turn signals worked). Your initial email was at 1:15 PM, and I had replied by 2:46 PM. By 6:42 PM our conversation had concluded with me asking you if there were bulbs in the city lights (not included by default nor ordered) and a short instruction on how to diagnose the high beam issue. On 11.10.15 you had sent me other email stating that you had been busy and not been able to do the test. Then more than a month later on 12.14.15 you sent another stating that you had been bogged down with stuff and had finally found time to do the test, and had taken action to cut and splice some wires. It was also determined/indicated in that email that the issue with the parking brake wasn't really a problem but rather that you were expecting the turn signal to act at the city light like the stock headlights, and that these being e-code assemblies the city light was a separate bulb. That email was at 7:26 pm, and at 8:51 pm I replied with an acknowledgment that the city light is a separate bulb and had to be purchased separately per the product description.

Then in late July 2016 you sent me another email. I won't detail all of the emails because there were more messages than the previous thread, but similar to the above all the emails were replied to within a reasonable timeframe as far as I can see. I admit there was one email that took me a couple days to reply to as I was out of state on vacation at the time, but otherwise it seems that I replied within similar windows as the previous thread, which is to say emails were replied to within an hour or two. This thread ended with you saying you were going to check something with a multimeter and literally I never heard from you again until you popped back up last month with your review. I don't think I ever did anything that would come close to constituting "the run around", with each and every one of my emails being direct to the point in terms of diagnosis. At the point where it seemed like the bulb was the issue I sent you a new set right away. But that being said, please keep in mind that providing 1 or 2 things to look at is the most efficient way to diagnosis. The average customer does not want to get on the phone with tech support and be told "well, it could be any one of 10 different things and here is how to test them all". They want the most likely cause and a simple explanation of how to do that. Call any tech support line and that is how it is done because it avoids customers being overwhelmed and confused. "well, the intermittant bulb could be a bad bulb, bad ballast igniter, bad ballat box, bad power controller, loose connection, corrosion on the main plug, corroded/bad ground connections, blown fuse, voltage loss, or a worn headlight or turn signal switch all of which are faily common on your 13 year old car"...that's only going to lead to confusion. Instead, it makes more sense to just list the 1 or 2 most likely causes and go from there. I hope that makes sense. If it comes across as a "run around" please understand that it is not. It's just a best practice for tech support and meant to keep things simple and straightforward.

And beyond that I see no record in my email of anything related to a grommit, melted ballasts, or anything else beyond what is described above.

In all, I don't think the way you've described our interactions is an accurate reflection of them. You've also left out a couple of important pieces of information, such as the 2 pin to 3 pin turn signal modification you embarked on upon realizing that the assemblies used the e-code assemblies or the long stretches of time due to you being busy the vast majority of the "dragged out" process. At no point in time did you request a refund or to send the lights back to be repaired or replaced. You've painted our interactions as drastically different than I remember or am able to see by pulling up our emails. That being said, you are entitled to your opinion. I'm not going to engage you here past this point, and would appreciate if you wouldn't use my product page to post advertisements for other products. If you'd like to further discuss this I will gladly talk to you over the phone or text. I can be reached at 614-653-8434. And if you want me to look at it/them you are welcome to ship it to me and I will see what can be done.
 
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lunker

Member
Joined
May 12, 2014
Location
Muskoka
TDI
mk4 1.9, B6 V8
Hey there, I bought a set of headlights just over a year ago. Love them. I am finding the one side is and has been a different colour for some time. I tried emailing a little while ago and got nothing. Let me know what email address I can contact you at. Thanks.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

maxmoo

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 19, 2011
Location
Lakefield, Ontario, Canada
TDI
2000 golf, 2001 golf, 2000 beetle, 2003 wagon, 2004 golf, 2004 jetta, all diesels
If you want a real set of retrofit HID headlights, contact Mike Ojeda at VXTuning. He has just released a quad set of bi-xenon headlights for the mk4 Jetta.

I think Jeff's silence says enough about his interest in support existing and future customers.

https://www.vxtuning.com/

justin
Wow!
Your post says alot about you....my condolences .....hope your condition improves.
 

3L3M3NT

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2008
Location
Sturgeon Bay, WI
TDI
04 Jetta GLS TDI, 04 RTDI
Hey there, I bought a set of headlights just over a year ago. Love them. I am finding the one side is and has been a different colour for some time. I tried emailing a little while ago and got nothing. Let me know what email address I can contact you at. Thanks.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
From my experience that usually means the bulb is going out. I could be wrong, but that's what happened to me and after a new set of bulbs everything worked like it should.

Jeff may have come up with a different solution for you though...
 

Geordi

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 4, 2002
Location
Somewhere between Heaven and Hell. But it is reall
TDI
14 JSW DSG, 03 Wagon 01M, 400k and IPT performance auto!
I haven't gotten warning like that when the bulb dies... It just dies. I've now lost multiples of the HID bulbs since buying the kit 2 years ago, and I'm hoping that the latest failure (new bulb lasted exactly one week) is that ballast dying instead of the brand new bulb.

I like the housings and the light - just not the bulbs. I'm going to try some H1 LEDs this time since I have to go custom anyway.
 

turbovan+tdi

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 23, 2014
Location
Abbotsford, BC.
TDI
2003 TDI 2.0L ALH, auto, silver wagon, lowered, Colt stage 2 cam, ported head,205 injectors, 1756 turbo, Malone 2.0, 3" exhaust, 18" BBS RC GLI rims. 2004 blue GSW TDI, 5 speed, lowered, GLI BBS wheels painted black, Malone stage 2, Aerotur
I haven't gotten warning like that when the bulb dies... It just dies. I've now lost multiples of the HID bulbs since buying the kit 2 years ago, and I'm hoping that the latest failure (new bulb lasted exactly one week) is that ballast dying instead of the brand new bulb.

I like the housings and the light - just not the bulbs. I'm going to try some H1 LEDs this time since I have to go custom anyway.
LED's do not work in projector housings due to the way LED's only emit out of the sides. I tried it and its pathetic, you can't see, its worse than any OEM halogen headlight out there, :(
 

Nuje

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Location
Island near Vancouver
TDI
2015 Sportwagen; Golf GLS 2002 (swap from 2L gas); 2016 A3 e-tron
I tried a set of LEDs as well - I'd give them a "not great, but kinda ok" on dry roads, but once the road gets wet, being that they're 6000K in color, it feels like I didn't even have headlights on. Sent those suckers back after one 10km drive on wet road.
 
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