I've been pondering leaving comments about my experience with these headlights for awhile now. I've been a member of the club for several years. This is not a complaint towards Jeff. He has been excellent to deal with for the most part. This is simply my experience and a review of my lights.
I have purchased 2 sets of these lights from Jeff. The first set for my Jetta (garage queen) arrived with a broken adjuster and broken access door. Jeff was excellent at communicating with me and shipped out the new parts very quickly.
The second set for my Golf (daily driver) purchased on may 2014 actually got installed before the first set. First impressions are amazing! The quality and craftsmanship are very good.... At first.
After installing the Golf lights, I noticed straight away that the rotation was off on the driver light which was a pain to straighten. There are no rubber washers installed to prevent rotation due to vibration. Not a huge issue but still time consuming as you can't adjust while in the car so you have to turn the lights on, wait for warm up, check, turn off, wait til cool down, loosen locking nut, adjust a teensy bit, lather, rinse, repeat. Also the right headlight was very occasionally not firing. Usually turning lights off and then on, fixed this. It happened maybe 2 or 3 times in the first 6 months. Shortly after that the light stopped working altogether. I emailed Jeff and he suggested trying a new ballast from my other set that were still not installed yet. Sure enough the ballast was the problem. After inquiring about the newer 55W ballasts, it was suggested that I purchase 2 complete sets of 55W ballasts and bulbs so I had the upgraded ballasts to replace the original 35W ones that came with my Jetta lights and also a 55W ballast to replace the one that failed. Leaving me with 1 55W spare ballast. Since it was outside the 6 month warranty, it was not covered but Jeff gave me a small discount anyway.
While waiting for the replacement parts in January 2015, the driver side light failed. Also a ballast. I didn't contact Jeff because I already had replacements on the way. These ballasts had seen less than 5 months of duty running a little over an hour each day as my DRL's are disabled. They spent the fist couple of months still in the box while I was restoring the Golf.
Fast forward to last month (Dec 2015) the passenger side failed again! I popped a spare ballast in to test and sure enough I had another failed ballast. I contacted Jeff again knowing that there would be no warranty but simply asking if he had any ideas or if I'm doing something wrong. I'm in almost $1000 so far, have had 3 ballast failures in a year and a half. Also, my (CFL) angel eye on one side is dim and barely functioning, there is also condensation starting to build up on the passenger light and the rotation is now slowing turning.
Jeff got back to me straight away and asked a few questions and this is where I get disappointed. He suggested to put 35W ballasts back in as "The 55W ballasts put a lot of wear on both the bulbs and themselves."
Wait, what?
I did ask before upgrading to the 55W, there was no mention of this before hand. So now it's suggested to go back to the 35W ballasts. This left me feeling like I was just a beta tester with the 55W ballasts at my cost.
I answered the questions that Jeff had asked and waited. Didn't hear anything back. Emailed again after a couple of days (usually he responds within a day), didn't hear anything back. Emailed again after 3 weeks then got a response suggesting that I am sitting somewhere between bad luck and short life span on the 55W ballasts. Nothing can be done about the failed angel eye except disable them. I should check the vents and put a silica pouch in the light with condensation issues.
Also not sure if its worth mentioning but I did notice that these were intentional scratch marks on the housings. The words "Made in China" logo and the Hella logo are scratched off but still able to be read suggesting that these are possibly the chinese Hella knock-offs.
Final thoughts
I could sometimes be placed into the "champagne taste with a beer budget" category. Not that I'm cheap, I just always look for the best bang for my buck. These are visually nice lights to look at and appear to be made reasonably well for the cost. I purchased these lights because of the initial positive response.
- These lights don't have a super sharp cut-off line.
- They are constantly drifting for whatever reason and need to be touched up. (I keep a screw driver in the glovebox).
- The lock nut that holds the projector can vibrate loose causing rotation issues.
- The ballasts only last for months.
- The CFL angel eyes only last for months (CFL was only option available on Golf lights when purchased.)
- There can be condensation issues.