Anyone find good LED headlight bulbs?

I dont think those are built with enclosed headlights in mind.

I think they are built with the back of the light being open like some of the earlier composite headlights and most fog lights.

turbovan+tdi said:

They fit in the factory housings and the cover will go back on. I have LED's in my Getta with Golf headlights and my first MK4 Jetta.

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Really? I never wanted to spend the money to try, but that's good to know.

My question on cooling stands, though. Do the LEDs generate as much waste heat as halogens would?

Rob Mayercik said:

Really? I never wanted to spend the money to try, but that's good to know.
My question on cooling stands, though. Do the LEDs generate as much waste heat as halogens would?

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The first pair I bought was from a local LED company, had the flexible braid wiring for cooling, those were in my Jetta, they get warm but nothing extreme-paid way too much, The 2nd set are AUX Beam F16's, I went with the lower lumen so as not to kill other drivers. They fit under the housings with large heat sinks-they can be moved lower or higher to fit in different sized housings, had them for almost a year, with no issues. Makes driving at night a pleasure vs white knuckling as I drive mountain roads a lot.

turbovan+tdi said:

DO NOT put 100 watt bulbs in as said, you will melt the wiring.





They fit in the factory housings and the cover will go back on. I have LED's in my Getta with Golf headlights and my first MK4 Jetta.

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I have a Golf MK4 and do my share of night driving on backroads for work. When I looked the AUXbeams up it said they work in projector lights but will blind oncoming drivers if used in the standard halogen reflectors. Is that what you have?

Fixmy59bug said:

I would NEVER run a 100 watt bulb in a stock headlight.

The OE wiring is barely sufficient to handle the stock 55 watts. If you double that, you will burn up the wiring in a VERY short amount of time.

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OK, this is a little off topic but it does relate to lights and LEDs. I'm making the conversion to new headlights with fogs. My TDI wagon didn't have them and the existing lights are in pretty bad shape. Will H3 LED bulbs do a good job as fogs and if so, does anyone have a recommendation of a brand and maximum wattage to use? Thanks.

turbovan+tdi said:

LED's suck in projectors, there shape and design changes the light output, I found that out the hard way, its damn scary at night with them.

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I installed a pair of LED headlights in my wife's Fiat 500e. I just needed to cut a hole in the dust covers for the heatsink fans to stick out through. By rotating the LED housing, I was able to get more light output with less energy than the incandescent bulb. However, HIDs would be better and wouldn't have the bright spots and dim spot. Luckily with the projector lens, the dim spot is in an area that does not impair visual performance; besides the fog lamps fill this gap perfectly. Still, unless the headlamp housing was designed for LED, I think you're better off with HID.

alloztome said:

I have a Golf MK4 and do my share of night driving on backroads for work. When I looked the AUXbeams up it said they work in projector lights but will blind oncoming drivers if used in the standard halogen reflectors. Is that what you have?

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Don't use LED's in projector housings designed for HID's, the light output is downright dangerous. HID's radiate 360 deg of light, LED's out the sides. I tried that in my wife's car and couldn't see a thing a night, put HID's in the projectors, we could see.

I have regular headlights, although mine are Euro E codes for the Golf. I only get flashed when I am fully loaded and I guess the back end squats. I did aim them down a bit when I installed them, they still light up the road.

kwong7 said:

Still, unless the headlamp housing was designed for LED, I think you're better off with HID.

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Agreed.

What unit to buy? Read the whole thread, but....

the thread's been going on for a year and more and with terse questions and cryptic answers, it isn't clear what's the best LED A4 headlight choice at the current time.
I want one that doesn't require any cutting in my '03 A4 Jetta and allow the back cover to be in place. Suggestions?

sdean7855 said:

the thread's been going on for a year and more and with terse questions and cryptic answers, it isn't clear what's the best LED A4 headlight choice at the current time.
I want one that doesn't require any cutting in my '03 A4 Jetta and allow the back cover to be in place. Suggestions?

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Post 33

mejpassat said:

Philips is making the X-treme Ultinon LED in the correct sizes.
These have a ballast and a real nice heatsink. All plug and play no cutting wire.
I have put some in my Toyota FJcruiser and am going to try a set in my Passat when I have a bulb burn out.
In my FJ, the high beam is stronger and the low beam is brighter. Have not had anyone flash me yet. (I do need to adjust things though-to low).
Check them out.

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These ones?

https://www.powerbulbs.com/us/product/philips-x-treme-ultinon-led-headlamp-h7

Based on the above link, not street legal
Also what kind of headlight assembly I would have to buy for these to work in my 2004 Passat? The current ones are for the H7 halogen bulbs.

tikal said:

Based on the above link, not street legal

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Going off of this criteria, The ONLY thing that will be legal in your headlights will ONLY be H7 bulbs.

Drop in HID's are not street legal. Drop in LED's are not street legal.

The ONLY way to legally improve your lighting is to fit a set of the W8 HID headlight housings.

W8 won't work in a Golf. However he could put in Mk4 R32 headlight housings. That's what I did with my Golf, it was a very nice upgrade. Glass housings too...

About 3 years ago one of the factory ballasts went out. I ended up putting in a pair of aftermarket ballasts with 55w bulbs. That was an even nicer upgrade (and no, I was never flashed).

Tikal is asking about better lights for their 2004 passat...

That's why I quoted Tikal...

=^)

Fixmy59bug said:

Going off of this criteria, The ONLY thing that will be legal in your headlights will ONLY be H7 bulbs.
Drop in HID's are not street legal. Drop in LED's are not street legal.
The ONLY way to legally improve your lighting is to fit a set of the W8 HID headlight housings.

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Thanks for the reply. I understand.

So far for my reading the best combination to improve my night vision in my 2004 Passat (without blinding someone) is to get the Hella projector headlights (example) combined with a reputable HID set (H7 4500K from Morimoto for example).

I think the LED approach would be riskier and experimental than the HID one in my view.

I have been very cautious about the whole LED thing, as my many decades fooling with the halogen and HID side have been quite informative (and not very profitable). To begin with, while LEDs are very efficient, their output and lifespan is a direct result of how well you can dissipate the heat created on the tiny little chip. The beauty of HIDs is that the bulk of that heat is taken out from the ballast - a massive heat sink with electronics potted into them and able to be mounted remotely to cool well. LEDs could be a lot more powerful - if they weren't so constrained by having to mount their heat sink in a place where there is not normally much if any cooling air available.

I have to admit, there are now SOME LED drop-in bulbs that can work (H4 being a good example). You have to realize that the geometry of the light source is critical down to thousandths of an inch, and not many times can the very directional LED chips emit where the radial pattern of a hot wire or the much larger spherical source of an HID can cross over from one to the other. Generally, the larger the reflector, the more foregiving the geometry - and that is why there is little chance an LED bulb can work in a reflector made for HID or incandescent sources. Hell, even going from a filament to an HID the geometry in the tiny optics of a projector don't work.

Someone mentioned earlier that LEDs can't work in projectors, and I have to say, that NOTHING could be further from the truth. Pretty much ever high end LED light uses projector-like lenses, many with no reflector at all (as the light output is already very directional. I have LED lights from JW Speaker in most of my trucks, and they are not quite a crisp a pattern as HID projectors, but functionally work very well and are fully US DOT compliant.
https://www.jwspeaker.com/products/heated-4x6-led-headlights-model-8800-evolution-2/

If you want legal bi--beam LED projectors in your car (legal in Canada where we can use ECE pattern) these are also available http://www.myhellalights.com/index.php/products/auxiliary-lamps/modules/90mm-bi-led-module/

While I wish there was so low buck way of getting decent LED lighting, I have not found any. Yes, you can get cheap 7" round, 200mm rectangle and 4x6 lighting, but they are no where near the quality and beam control that the JW Speaker and Hella stuff is. Kiss at least a G-note goodby if you want just the main beams alone.

Pat Dolan said:

If you want legal bi--beam LED projectors in your car (legal in Canada where we can use ECE pattern) these are also available http://www.myhellalights.com/index.php/products/auxiliary-lamps/modules/90mm-bi-led-module/

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Can they be retrofitted into one of these headlights?

Pat Dolan said:

Someone mentioned earlier that LEDs can't work in projectors, and I have to say, that NOTHING could be further from the truth. Pretty much ever high end LED light uses projector-like lenses, many with no reflector at all (as the light output is already very directional. I have LED lights from JW Speaker in most of my trucks, and they are not quite a crisp a pattern as HID projectors, but functionally work very well and are fully US DOT compliant.
https://www.jwspeaker.com/products/heated-4x6-led-headlights-model-8800-evolution-2/
If you want legal bi--beam LED projectors in your car (legal in Canada where we can use ECE pattern) these are also available http://www.myhellalights.com/index.php/products/auxiliary-lamps/modules/90mm-bi-led-module/
While I wish there was so low buck way of getting decent LED lighting, I have not found any. Yes, you can get cheap 7" round, 200mm rectangle and 4x6 lighting, but they are no where near the quality and beam control that the JW Speaker and Hella stuff is. Kiss at least a G-note goodby if you want just the main beams alone.

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I've tried drop in LED's in HID housings and they DO NOT work. I am sure the OE LED lights are designed for led lights but putting LED lights that emit out of the sides into stock HID lights is asking for trouble. If you claim it works, be my guest, not here to argue but I've done it and its dangerous.

tikal said:

Can they be retrofitted into one of these

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You can retrofit just about anything into anything, but it requires a fair bit of fabricating skill. For instance, the Hella LED projectors are 90mm lense, and I suspect the projector in those lights is much smaller. If you wonder why 90, the answer is that it is a more-or-less standard size for a lot of trucks and busses (especially those in limited production or one-off).

Pat Dolan said:

You can retrofit just about anything into anything, but it requires a fair bit of fabricating skill. For instance, the Hella LED projectors are 90mm lense, and I suspect the projector in those lights is much smaller. If you wonder why 90, the answer is that it is a more-or-less standard size for a lot of trucks and busses (especially those in limited production or one-off).

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Ok, thanks for the reply.

The guys at TRS are very helpful. I got my conversion kit from them.

Ok, picking up the subject of LEDs, I was doing some research on Kelvin color temperature ranges and by luck I found this site showing an H7 option for my 2004 Passat:

http://www.vleds.com/shop-application/application-low-beam/h7/micro-h7.html

I gave them a call and I had a very good and long chat with one of the co-founders of VLEDS. Very nice guy. His company started around the same time as The Retrofit Source in 2005 but has moved away completely from HID to LED as the technology has advanced enough to offer competitive lumens (around 3,000) at 5K in a bulb that mimics as close as possible the location of the halogen H7 filament so these H7 LED bulbs can be used as a direct drop in the B5.5 Hella OEM projector headlights. In comparison to HIDs there is less hardware involved (no ballasts and/or relays) so potentially taking the weak link out (more reliability) and durability is higher by like an order of magnitude (30,000 hours vs. 2,000 hours). Cost is the same as the Morimoto H7 Elite ($150).

What are your thoughts?

Their lumen and power numbers put efficacy in the 94-130 lm/W range, which is inline with current tech. The “red” copper vacuum tube is likely a heat pipe, which is clever and better than and aluminum body, but that price is still hard to eat.

Problem with the light level is that the output is so great that it will reduce your peripheral vision making it harder for you to see. Stock H7 lamps are ~1500 lm and I would go past 2250-2500. Even then, you’ll have a harder time seeing more of the road.

So both HIDs and LEDs providing around 3,000 lumens are 'too much intensity' that it will interfere with my peripheral vision?

I thought getting around 3,000 lumens well focused in low beams is what we want.

Digital Corpus said:

Their lumen and power numbers put efficacy in the 94-130 lm/W range, which is inline with current tech. The “red” copper vacuum tube is likely a heat pipe, which is clever and better than and aluminum body, but that price is still hard to eat.
Problem with the light level is that the output is so great that it will reduce your peripheral vision making it harder for you to see. Stock H7 lamps are ~1500 lm and I would go past 2250-2500. Even then, you’ll have a harder time seeing more of the road.

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That depends.

Lumens is the luminous output.
Lux is how much light falls on a surface.

When using LED/HID replacements for *reflector* based lights, then yes, it’ll be too much since you’ll have various parts of the road illuminated too brightly, lux, that’ll affect the rest of your vision.

If you have projectors that provide clean, even illumination, then you’ll benefit from from increased lunimenance up until a point. How much, I cannot tell you because I don’t have those type of headlights on hand to compare to. An educated guess would be the 3000-4000 advertised, though conservatively I’d say 3500 lumens.

Digital Corpus said:

That depends.

Lumens is the luminous output.
Lux is how much light falls on a surface.

When using LED/HID replacements for *reflector* based lights, then yes, it’ll be too much since you’ll have various parts of the road illuminated too brightly, lux, that’ll affect the rest of your vision.

If you have projectors that provide clean, even illumination, then you’ll benefit from from increased lunimenance up until a point. How much, I cannot tell you because I don’t have those type of headlights on hand to compare to. An educated guess would be the 3000-4000 advertised, though conservatively I’d say 3500 lumens.

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Ok, this makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

i just bought some saber leds from ddm for my 04. didnt realize there is a main harness that goes to the headlight housing. gonna have to ponder on how to install em.

turbovan+tdi said:

I've tried drop in LED's in HID housings and they DO NOT work. I am sure the OE LED lights are designed for led lights but putting LED lights that emit out of the sides into stock HID lights is asking for trouble. If you claim it works, be my guest, not here to argue but I've done it and its dangerous.

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I did not emphatically refer to drop in junk. REAL manufacturers make LOTS of LED projectors that are ECE and DOT compliant. AND the perform like a dam (I have a few sets, but figure over a grand or more per vehicle).

Digital Corpus said:

That depends.

Lumens is the luminous output.
Lux is how much light falls on a surface.

When using LED/HID replacements for *reflector* based lights, then yes, it’ll be too much since you’ll have various parts of the road illuminated too brightly, lux, that’ll affect the rest of your vision.

If you have projectors that provide clean, even illumination, then you’ll benefit from from increased lunimenance up until a point. How much, I cannot tell you because I don’t have those type of headlights on hand to compare to. An educated guess would be the 3000-4000 advertised, though conservatively I’d say 3500 lumens.

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THANKS for posting this. One of least understood parts of night vision is that it is more about contrast than illumination per se. The real deal is to put the increase in light where it needs to be. I usually set my vehicles up with four levels: fog, low, high, and diving. Fog = fog lights ONLY - must extinguish headlamps or any other forward source of light to make them work properly, and the beam should be no more than +/- 5 degrees from vertical axis, as close to 160 degree width as possible. On ANY other beam, fog must be off - since that thing that everyone seems to think they need "foreground lighting" is what buggers up your contrast for objects you are trying to see out at the limits of the selected beam. Same applies to my comments about beam vertical spread - anything more than 5 degrees up from beam center (that must be canted 5 degreees down) will reflect off of snow, fog or rain back into your eyes, blinding you to what lies beyond. Even 5 more degrees down (never mind full hemisphere down as most "fogs" do) reflect off of wet or snowy road surface and once more bounce off of the precipitation. Low beam is low beam, ECE cutoff preferred and projectors can do this far better than reflectors. High means just than, high WITHOUT low - same reason - eliminate the contrast from the near field of low beam. Truth is, if you don't see anything until it is that close to be in your "foreground" you are going to hit it anyhow. Secret is to see it BEFORE it is that close - thus with very selective pattern. I supplement high with driving pencil beams that deliver the big numbers BEYOND the end of the high beam pattern (and turn on only with high beams).

There is a stunningly short list of lights that can actually do all of these things properly.