Ecodes or HID or other options?

where2 said:

The answer to this is: Absolutely! When I got my Ebay knock off E-codes, I dismantled them before they ever went on my Jetta_Wagon, and installed glass lenses. I just used a heat gun to gently warm the housings to separate the lenses from the backs. For those worried about breaking glass lenses, My '80 Scirocco, and '90 Corrado had factory glass lenses, and I never broke one while driving. The LaminX on the glass Jetta lenses is now cloudy after 6+ years... (the Ebay Ecodes have very poor copies of Ecode reflector optics based on the Ecodes I had on the Scirocco and Corrado). I'm looking for upgrades as well, that's why I was reading this thread.
Incidentally, one of the mounting pegs was broken when I received my knock off Ecodes back in 2012, so don't blame the border crossing for breaking the Midwest upgrades. I think it's a shipping thing with these lights in general.

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Just another word of caution for glass lenses. If you plan on going aftermarket glass, ensure they are NOT the B grade lenses (only if you are planning on retrofitting projectors into the headlight). Those usually have imperfections (think bubbles or wavy to the eye a bit). The refraction of light is different between glass and polycarbonate. If you're using B grade lenses with projectors your light output/cutoff could potentially be distorted.

For all the projector retrofits I've done on my vehicles, I've used poly to avoid this. Yes, the ebay lenses are cheap. It's not necessarily that the lens material is inferior, it's the fact that the clearcoat on the ebay lens is where the companies cut corners (among some other things). It chips and then peels wicked easy.

Right out of the box I normally rough the lenses up to 1500 grit and then hit them w/ 4-5 coats of car clear coat. They will dang near last forever that way. As well, looking at the front of my bumper and hood (at least around here) that area gets peppered with rocks. There's always the chance the glass could crack, something poly would resist. @where2, sounds like you have had good luck with glass over the years not cracking which is great!

KrashDH said:

Just another word of caution for glass lenses. If you plan on going aftermarket glass, ensure they are NOT the B grade lenses (only if you are planning on retrofitting projectors into the headlight). Those usually have imperfections (think bubbles or wavy to the eye a bit). The refraction of light is different between glass and polycarbonate. If you're using B grade lenses with projectors your light output/cutoff could potentially be distorted.

For all the projector retrofits I've done on my vehicles, I've used poly to avoid this. Yes, the ebay lenses are cheap. It's not necessarily that the lens material is inferior, it's the fact that the clearcoat on the ebay lens is where the companies cut corners (among some other things). It chips and then peels wicked easy.

Right out of the box I normally rough the lenses up to 1500 grit and then hit them w/ 4-5 coats of car clear coat. They will dang near last forever that way. As well, looking at the front of my bumper and hood (at least around here) that area gets peppered with rocks. There's always the chance the glass could crack, something poly would resist. @where2, sounds like you have had good luck with glass over the years not cracking which is great!

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How do you tell it is a lower quality glass? By the "Made in China" label?

In 53 years of driving, I don't recall having to replace a headlight due to a rock breaking it; guess I've been lucky.

romad said:

How do you tell it is a lower quality glass? By the "Made in China" label?

In 53 years of driving, I don't recall having to replace a headlight due to a rock breaking it; guess I've been lucky.

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Usually the sellers have to advertise if the glass has imperfections and directly state it in the description of the glass. You can also tell by the price. $45-$55 will get you a set of B-grade lenses, while A grade you'll be paying about double that.

All depends on where you drive. I've been peppered so much that I'm going to have to re-paint my hood/bumper. Our cars are low to the ground and the headlight level is perfect for a rock getting kicked from a truck. It's hit or miss around here if trucks are actually running mudflaps too so that doesn't help. Don't get my wrong, I thought about doing glass for my latest retrofit but a poly lens with a professional 2-part clearcoat (or a steady hand) will give better refraction characteristics than glass will when used with a projector. I've had both.

OK. I've ordered e-codes with glass lenses from VX Tuning so they should be good.


I've driven all over these United States (lower 48) and Western Europe.

romad said:

How do you tell it is a lower quality glass? By the "Made in China" label?

In 53 years of driving, I don't recall having to replace a headlight due to a rock breaking it; guess I've been lucky.

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You just reminded me of a funny story:

Back in the early 90s, my father was preparing to scrap a rusted-out '83 Subaru. A week or two before he took it to the junkard, he noticed on the ride home from work one Friday evening that the headlights weren't working - both sides, and both hi/lo beams. Total headlight failure.

Given the symptoms, he figured it was either the main headlight switch or the hi-lo dimmer switch on the stalk, so on Saturday morning he started tearing the dashboard apart to get at the wiring and so forth.

While he was doing that I wandered out to the driveway to see how it was going. After hearing that he had half the dash apart and hadn't found anything, I walked around to the front and looked at the lights (H6054 sealed-beams) themselves. The conversation that ensued went like this:

"Um, Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"There's a hole in this headlight".

"??" (climbs out of car, comes around front) "!^~@#$"

By this point, I'd checked the other light and found the same thing - a tiny little hole, little bigger than the tip of a ballpoint pen, right about dead-center of each headlight. With the vacuum cavity breached, the filaments burned out almost the instant he turned the lights on.

After he reassembled the dashboard/column (with, as you can imagine, much muttering/grumbling), he told me had been following a dump truck that was spewing off little gravel a couple days before on the highway, and that odds were that's when the bulbs got hit. We had a couple random extra lights in the garage (we always changed those things in pairs when one blew, and kept the other one as a spare. I still have 2 or 3 laying around, I think), so he tossed in a couple of those, and motored on the last week or two until he drove it to the junkard and scrapped it. Became a funny story later when he told my Mom what we'd found.

Still, what are the odds that both would get hit and punctured in exactly the same spot at the same time?

romad said:

In 53 years of driving, I don't recall having to replace a headlight due to a rock breaking it; guess I've been lucky.

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I put Lamin-X on the glass lenses that came on my Hella OEM projectors way back in 2008 or whatever, because I wanted to protect my investment!

Didn't really pay attention to them because they were all nicely protected now!

After driving in a big rainstorm a couple months in, I noticed a bunch of condensation on the inside, and even some water pooling at the bottom of the headlight. Then noticed that pretty much right smack in the middle of the lens, there was a pretty decent impact in the Lamin-X, and sure enough - a crack right underneath it. Lamin-X did its job, I guess, but whatever rock hit the lens did so with enough impact to do some damage.

Given that this was well before glass aftermarket lens-only was a thing, and if they were, they weren't within my budget, I took some leftover 3M "Invisible Shield" from my iPhone 3G (I didn't use the skin on the glass front), cut it into a nice dollar-coin sized circle, put it over the crack, and never had moisture intrusion again.

where2 said:

The answer to this is: Absolutely! When I got my Ebay knock off E-codes, I dismantled them before they ever went on my Jetta_Wagon, and installed glass lenses. I just used a heat gun to gently warm the housings to separate the lenses from the backs. For those worried about breaking glass lenses, My '80 Scirocco, and '90 Corrado had factory glass lenses, and I never broke one while driving. The LaminX on the glass Jetta lenses is now cloudy after 6+ years... (the Ebay Ecodes have very poor copies of Ecode reflector optics based on the Ecodes I had on the Scirocco and Corrado). I'm looking for upgrades as well, that's why I was reading this thread.
Incidentally, one of the mounting pegs was broken when I received my knock off Ecodes back in 2012, so don't blame the border crossing for breaking the Midwest upgrades. I think it's a shipping thing with these lights in general.

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Where did you get your glass lenses?? Would you recommend a certain brand or quality?

Also how did you find the knock off ecodes compared to real ones performance wise as far as the reflectors and light output? What type of bulbs did you use?

KrashDH said:

Just another word of caution for glass lenses. If you plan on going aftermarket glass, ensure they are NOT the B grade lenses (only if you are planning on retrofitting projectors into the headlight). Those usually have imperfections (think bubbles or wavy to the eye a bit). The refraction of light is different between glass and polycarbonate. If you're using B grade lenses with projectors your light output/cutoff could potentially be distorted.

For all the projector retrofits I've done on my vehicles, I've used poly to avoid this. Yes, the ebay lenses are cheap. It's not necessarily that the lens material is inferior, it's the fact that the clearcoat on the ebay lens is where the companies cut corners (among some other things). It chips and then peels wicked easy.

Right out of the box I normally rough the lenses up to 1500 grit and then hit them w/ 4-5 coats of car clear coat. They will dang near last forever that way. As well, looking at the front of my bumper and hood (at least around here) that area gets peppered with rocks. There's always the chance the glass could crack, something poly would resist. @where2, sounds like you have had good luck with glass over the years not cracking which is great!

Click to expand...

Does the same apply if using ecodes like a normal bulb, not projector?

romad said:

OK. I've ordered e-codes with glass lenses from VX Tuning so they should be good.


I've driven all over these United States (lower 48) and Western Europe.

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Can you post a link to the ones you ended up going with ? please and thanks!

WolfgangVW said:

Can you post a link to the ones you ended up going with ? please and thanks!

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vxtuning.com

HOME > SHOP > ASSEMBLIES > HEADLIGHTS > EURO SPEC E-CODE HEADLIGHTS – CHROME – MK4 JETTA / BORA

If you just want the glass lenses go: Home>Shop>Replacement Lenses>Headlights

romad said:

vxtuning.com
HOME > SHOP > ASSEMBLIES > HEADLIGHTS > EURO SPEC E-CODE HEADLIGHTS – CHROME – MK4 JETTA / BORA
If you just want the glass lenses go: Home>Shop>Replacement Lenses>Headlights

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Great thx!

Received another email from Mike at VX Tuning telling me there is another delay in my order to the end of May now. I guess I'm going to have to see if I can just get a left unit so I can replace the damaged one until Mike can get my order to me. Anyone have a source for a single Hella e-code for a Mark IV 2005 Jetta Wagon?

I installed HID projectors. I drive about 35,000 miles a year. did the install my self. Also installed extra high beam headlamps in the grill.

What did you put behind the VW emblem?

Thx djmiller. Also what did you use for those extra high beams? How do they work?

Extra headlights are from GM olds cutlass/camaro/pontiac. Used the high beam assemblies so I had adjuster and all. They are the smallest sealed beam headlamp available. They are relayed to high beam signal from car. Behind the VW emblem is and orange LED marker light from a semi trailer wired to marker light signal.

djmiller said:

Extra headlights are from GM olds cutlass/camaro/pontiac. Used the high beam assemblies so I had adjuster and all. They are the smallest sealed beam headlamp available. They are relayed to high beam signal from car. Behind the VW emblem is and orange LED marker light from a semi trailer wired to marker light signal.

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That is a pretty sweet setup. So with your high beams you always get the added Pontiac lights and your normal high beams? How's the light output? And that marker light is sweet too!

light output is pretty good, only downside is the sealed beams are yellow and the HIDs are white. But it's not annoying, HIDs have a straight line break for low beams the sealed beams are pointed straight out and a little high. is really fun when someone flashes me