OE Headlights

I know this is probably an old story but I am stuck on what to do about poor lighting at night. I installed better Sylvania bulbs in my assemblies. The high beams are fine, I just think the low beams are terrible, can't see past any on coming cars. My assemblies have the single H4 hi/lo beam bulb. Does anyone have any good suggestions for replacements, I just want good bright lights I can see down the road. I don't want to have to take a mortgage out to replace them. I am ok with bulbs or assemblies. Thanks for any advice. If you have any links to good supplies I would appreciate that as well.
George

Common complaint. Clear the lenses, adjust the aim. Still not happy, there are lots of aftermarket goodies.
Midwest Light Creations- HID Headlights and Retrofit Kits ...

Jetta George said:

I know this is probably an old story but I am stuck on what to do about poor lighting at night. I installed better Sylvania bulbs in my assemblies. The high beams are fine, I just think the low beams are terrible, can't see past any on coming cars. My assemblies have the single H4 hi/lo beam bulb. Does anyone have any good suggestions for replacements, I just want good bright lights I can see down the road. I don't want to have to take a mortgage out to replace them. I am ok with bulbs or assemblies. Thanks for any advice. If you have any links to good supplies I would appreciate that as well.

George

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I have found that Sylvania LL bulbs are fine if aimed correctly. Just redid mine because I could barely see anything even with my high beams on. Of course cleaning the lens or replacing them with glass ones will help. Or you can find aftermarket OE spec new ones for about $36 each. At least I can here locally.

dubrs.com

Whoever owned my car before me installed brand new US DOT headlight assemblies in my car, and they are still not as bright as I'd like them. I ordered some HIDs from Midwest Lighting here recently, I can share what they look like when I get them all installed if you like.

Yes, if you could let me know which ones you bought and how you like them would be great. Thank you.

Thanks for the link to Midwest, I checked them out and when you get done picking the headlight assy you want it gets pretty pricey. I may end up going that way but not sure of what all do I need. I don't currently have fog lights but probably want them to work.

I ordered the all chrome ones. Thought about the others, but being as my wagon is silver, it matches better they should be showing up in the mail soon.

I recently installed these H4s in my classic car and it was like going from candle light to search light. They're super bright white and focus well. I liked it so much I installed their H1s in my beetle.

They're a little spendier than off the shelf offerings but worth it IMO. If your housings are old and faded though it will decrease their effectiveness.

https://www.amazon.com/Osram-H4-64193NBL-BREAKER-Headlight/dp/B07F8QLDCL

I got a headlight restoration kit from Harbor Freight and did my lenses. It was a huge improvement but didn't last long. After two years they are almost as bad as before.

There's this stuff called 403 aerospace UV protectant, it helps keep the lenses from fogging up that quickly. Use it after polishing the lenses up.

DO NOT put HIDs in the stock housings in an ALH.

You WILL blind oncoming drivers. Those are NOT projectors, which can focus the light properly. Yes, you will see better. The spill, however, will blind the guy coming toward you and he may hit you head-on as a consequence. There is no way to put an HID bulb in a reflector housing and have it properly pattern the light.

Oh by the way, if that happens and you live you're screwed as the accident will be ruled your fault.

BTW the "silverstar" and similar lamps are garbage in terms of actual light output. They get the "more blue" color by filtering part of the spectrum, which actually REDUCES lumens on the road! That's the oppose of what you want. In addition the human eye is best sensitive (in terms of detecting things in the road and around it) with slightly-yellow colored lighting, NOT "pure white" and DEFINITELY not blue. For projector H11s you CAN use an H9 bulb with minor modifications to the bulb (easily done in 2 minutes with a Dremel) which is a LOT brighter, and since it's a projector you won't blast the oncoming driver. The trade-off is (materially) shorter bulb life.

But there's no way to do that with the combined-filament reflector headlights found in cars like the ALH. There your best bet is going to be a higher-output (shorter life though) UNFILTERED (look for CLEAR glass on the bulb, NO COLOR TO IT AT ALL) regular bulb. Again, the price you'll pay is shorter bulb life and on the ALH cars you want to disable the DRLs if you do this or you'll probably be real unhappy with how often you have to change them.

The HIDs I ordered where the whole light assembly so it has the sharp cutoff for the light. HIDs and LEDs in a factory housing are bright. But everyone else on the road will hate you.

I have a set of Jeff’s lights in my Mk IV. Generally I am quite happy with them. They appear to be Depo housings retrofitted with Morimoto mini H1 projectors. Workmanship is decent but not OEM. Light output and beam pattern very good, perhaps slightly too sharp a cutoff for my taste but not a problem. Much more light than OEM and more than the admittedly elderly OEM HIDs in my Mk VI. HID bulb output does degrade with time.

After two years of use, perhaps more since I bought them used, one of the bulbs is acting up. It strobes occasionally on startup for a few seconds and is noticeably dimmer than the other. I am about to replace both bulbs with morimoto XB’s and to do this it appears I will have to depin and repin the connectors to get the wiring through the back plate seal of the headlight. Not a difficult task, but not one I want to carry out under the hood either so the bulb and backplate will be going into my warm clean workshop for the operation. Note that the H1 HID bulb is a retrofit special and possibly the weakest link in the setup.

Another option to consider is
https://www.vxtuning.com/shop/vehic...adlights-gli-style-mkiv-jetta-bora-pre-order/

Jetta George said:

I know this is probably an old story but I am stuck on what to do about poor lighting at night. I installed better Sylvania bulbs in my assemblies. The high beams are fine, I just think the low beams are terrible, can't see past any on coming cars. My assemblies have the single H4 hi/lo beam bulb. Does anyone have any good suggestions for replacements, I just want good bright lights I can see down the road. I don't want to have to take a mortgage out to replace them. I am ok with bulbs or assemblies. Thanks for any advice. If you have any links to good supplies I would appreciate that as well.
George

Click to expand...

I bought a set of cheap knockoff ecodes years back for pretty cheap can't remember but less than $200 all in. Installed and huge improvement, looked super sharp too. Now it's probably 5 years or more and they're fogged up and not as good. But right after installation it was kinda epic how much of a difference from the originals. They definitely are cheap tho like the wires were cheap you could tell etc. But for $150 or whatever it was a pretty cheap fix, and considering when you get into the silver stars or nighthawk bulbs that can be $60 or more a pair........

PM me if you want more info I'll dig it up

I put a set of his ecodes in Donna's Jetta, dims are about the same, but brights are a big difference in stock. Never tried HID's

Am in the same boat. On my ALH Golf I got the e-codes from VOlx tuning, glass lenses included. Nice improvement. Contemplating the HID retrofit offering from Volx for my Jetta. But...I see there are Jetta lights that have a low beam projector, and a high beam reflector...and wonder how difficult it is to adjust the Jetta wiring to behave like the Golf's and leave both on with high beams engaged?

Example: https://www.vxtuning.com/shop/vehic...lights-black-style-mkiv-jetta-bora-pre-order/

These are HID with the high/low flap inside the projector. Bulb always on, and blocker sets pattern.

Example: https://www.ecstuning.com/b-spyder-...ctor-headlight-set-chrome/5012265-space-~spy/

Projector low beam, reflector high beam. Halogen bulbs. Either low or high beam comes on.

Sooooo...how to wire these ECS lights to run both high and low when the High Beam is engaged?

Thanks!
Douglas