HID headlights

KrashDH

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Joined
Dec 22, 2013
Location
Washington
TDI
2002 Golf
Any reliable vendors converting factory US headlights to HID? I'm not having much luck with Midwest Light.
Last time I checked they were the only ones that were doing MK4's. Other than that, you'd have to go the DIY route.
 

Nero Morg

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OR
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2014 A6 TDI, 2001 Jetta TDI, 2014 Passat TDI
That's a real shame, I have a set from Midwest, but I guess people just get busy.
 

benmarks

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Joined
Jun 14, 2003
Location
Portland, OR
TDI
2004 Jetta GLS Sedan Platinum Gray
There's VXTuning, but most of their HID's say "pre-order.

However, I just checked again, and this message is new:

UPDATE 11/2021
We are now accepting pre-orders for our next shipment which will be available first quarter of 2022 (Late Feb / Early March 2022). Due to the worldwide chaos happening around the globe right now, we will be having only a limited amount of sets available for pre-order.
If you decide to place an order, please note that they are NOT IN STOCK and are being sold on a “pre-order” basis right now. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us via Email. THANK YOU!
 

benmarks

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 14, 2003
Location
Portland, OR
TDI
2004 Jetta GLS Sedan Platinum Gray
I had an older version of the VXTuning headlights for a MK4 Jetta, and they were great. I don't have any experience with the newer single-projector version that uses bi-xenon bulbs for both the low beams and high beams.
 

KrashDH

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Joined
Dec 22, 2013
Location
Washington
TDI
2002 Golf
There's VXTuning, but most of their HID's say "pre-order.

However, I just checked again, and this message is new:

UPDATE 11/2021
We are now accepting pre-orders for our next shipment which will be available first quarter of 2022 (Late Feb / Early March 2022). Due to the worldwide chaos happening around the globe right now, we will be having only a limited amount of sets available for pre-order.
If you decide to place an order, please note that they are NOT IN STOCK and are being sold on a “pre-order” basis right now. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us via Email. THANK YOU!
So does VXTuning actually do their own retrofits or do they buy the pre-packaged garbage headlights? Not sure how there's a shortage if they're putting together their own retrofit kits? I haven't had any trouble getting ballasts, bulbs, and projectors, which is all you need for a retrofit. I guess they might buy some sort of headlight assy too. Who knows?
 

csstevej

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Joined
Aug 12, 2004
Location
north nj
TDI
2001 golf tdi 4 door auto now a manual, mine, 2000 golf 2 door M/T son's,daughters 98 NB non-TDI 2.0, 2003 TDI NB for next daughter, head repaired and on road,gluten for punishment got another tdi 2001NB,another yellow tdi NB
Sooo anyone have a good how to do for this?
 

KrashDH

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Joined
Dec 22, 2013
Location
Washington
TDI
2002 Golf
Sooo anyone have a good how to do for this?
I think it depends if you want one for a Golf or Jetta. They are quite different beasts when it comes to a retrofit. I am in the middle of a second retrofit on my Golf, but that DIY is unlikely to apply to anyone due to the customization that needs to be done because of the housing and using a mini D2S 3" projector. If you want to use just a standard mini H1 projector in a standard housing, there are also some good write ups on Vortex. The only writeups I've done are for the Mini H1 for a Golf (that have been through completion and I am using on my car currently)
 

benmarks

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Joined
Jun 14, 2003
Location
Portland, OR
TDI
2004 Jetta GLS Sedan Platinum Gray
I don't know for sure, but I think I saw photos once of huge stacks of chrome inserts that they get made. I think they start with a Depo housing, insert a custom chrome or black (or mix of chrome and black) insert into the Depo housing, and then add all the electronics, etc. If requested, they will add a glass lens too. They used to offer either VXTuning-branded or Morimoto electronics, but now they don't specify. They also used to use Morimoto bulbs and projectors. I am pulling this from memory from 2017, so I may have some of the details wrong or some of these things may have changed. It may also differ when comparing the Golf and Jetta headlights.
 

KrashDH

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Joined
Dec 22, 2013
Location
Washington
TDI
2002 Golf
I don't know for sure, but I think I saw photos once of huge stacks of chrome inserts that they get made. I think they start with a Depo housing, insert a custom chrome or black (or mix of chrome and black) insert into the Depo housing, and then add all the electronics, etc. If requested, they will add a glass lens too. They used to offer either VXTuning-branded or Morimoto electronics, but now they don't specify. They also used to use Morimoto bulbs and projectors. I am pulling this from memory from 2017, so I may have some of the details wrong or some of these things may have changed. It may also differ when comparing the Golf and Jetta headlights.
Ok right on. Yeah my V2.0 retrofit is with DEPO housings which had projectors in them. They must have a custom mount that utilizes the existing holes of the "reflector" even though it's flat since they have a projector flange mounted to it. The Depo housings I'm using came with glass, although I poached those glass lenses for my current retrofit, so when I finally get around to figuring out what I'm going to do for my mounting solution, I'll have to source another set of glass lenses.
 

PakProtector

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Joined
Jan 5, 2014
Location
AnnArbor, MI
TDI
Mk.4's and the Cummins
So does VXTuning actually do their own retrofits or do they buy the pre-packaged garbage headlights? Not sure how there's a shortage if they're putting together their own retrofit kits? I haven't had any trouble getting ballasts, bulbs, and projectors, which is all you need for a retrofit. I guess they might buy some sort of headlight assy too. Who knows?
If one assumes they are not telling fibs in their ad copy, they are building custom to use the excellent FXR 3.0 projectors in the 2.5" lens flavor. I'd love a set, and since I have a bit o' time to get the '02 otherwise squared away I may get a set. What I'd really like is is just the buckets and projectors so I can rig the wiring myself and outfit them with a pair of lightly turned up Hella ballasts( or perhaps the Hylux A0050's ).

I have proven to myself that I can build a lot more cheaply...and while I like the 'no trouble, plug an SEE!' effect, I could instead spend the $$ towards a set of new BEW nozzles...LOL
cheers,
Douglas
 

Mongler98

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Joined
Mar 23, 2011
Location
COLORADO (SE of Denver)
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98 Jetta TDI AHU 1.9L (944 TDI swap in progress) I moved so now i got nothing but an AHU in a garage on a pallet.
Any reliable vendors converting factory US headlights to HID? I'm not having much luck with Midwest Light.
Imo. Ditch HID. Go LED.
You want to look for cree (name brand) and for lux. Lumens means diddly squat.
If you need more info... go over to candelpowerfourms.
 

PakProtector

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 5, 2014
Location
AnnArbor, MI
TDI
Mk.4's and the Cummins
Hey Mongler, given the 'go Cree' recommendations that come up all the time, what is the counterfeit rate? As in who is claiming Cree bits and instead running cheap dreck?
cheers,
Douglas
 

KrashDH

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Dec 22, 2013
Location
Washington
TDI
2002 Golf
If one assumes they are not telling fibs in their ad copy, they are building custom to use the excellent FXR 3.0 projectors in the 2.5" lens flavor. I'd love a set, and since I have a bit o' time to get the '02 otherwise squared away I may get a set. What I'd really like is is just the buckets and projectors so I can rig the wiring myself and outfit them with a pair of lightly turned up Hella ballasts( or perhaps the Hylux A0050's ).

I have proven to myself that I can build a lot more cheaply...and while I like the 'no trouble, plug an SEE!' effect, I could instead spend the $$ towards a set of new BEW nozzles...LOL
cheers,
Douglas
@PakProtector, if you want their headlights, the wiring would be really easy to custom make. For my retrofit, I have completely customized the wiring harness to my liking. Only took a few splices and some off the shelf adapters to make it happen. I rigged it for different things to come on together, and the only things that will be exiting the housing will be the D2S bulb adapters. Everything else will remain as factory, internal.

Imo. Ditch HID. Go LED.
You want to look for cree (name brand) and for lux. Lumens means diddly squat.
If you need more info... go over to candelpowerfourms.
This isn't great advice currently, as the technology with LED's in projectors has not surpassed an HID bulb in projectors. There's a lot of tech jargon that I won't get into for sake of rambling, but it comes down to how the light is emitted as well as the projector bowls. You can't (well you CAN technically) just slap an LED bulb into a projector housing and expect it to perform the same as an HID in the projector bowl housing. Today's projectors are designed to reflect the light of an HID capsule, not an LED. With an LED bulb you're going to get a lot of dark spotting, as well as a terrible hotspot, which means you aren't going to get the light dispersed in an even fashion. You'll still get a cutoff, but it won't be quite as clean or reach as far as the HID bulb.

That being said, Morimoto makes LED retrofit projectors. But the quality of light output is still sub par to that of a true HID retrofit. There's been a lot of side by side tests. Their Bi-LED projectors also cost $400 for the set. As well, the LED's are built in, meaning there's no changing a bulb if one goes out. You're dismantling your retrofit to take the entire projector out and have it replaced.

For the price and quality, a true HID retrofit is still the way to go. All the companies doing retrofits for these vehicles (across all manufacturers) are only offering it with HID's for a reason. If the tech was there for LED bulbs to work in a standard projector, it'd be here already. Same way that if they could design an LED/HID bulb that drops into a standard reflector housing and have the sharp cutoff and no scattered light, it'd be here. Those are challenging and take R&D time.

I do think in the future that they may achieve the technology in an LED bulb that can drop into a projector and surpass the quality of an HID and I'm all for that, but it's going to take a projector that is designed for said LED. The big challenge being there's literally thousands of crap LED bulbs on the market with different arrays of LED's. So one projector will not work for all, it would have to pair with a bulb. Whereas a HID bulb has the same design across ALL the bulbs, so a universal projector can be made for them to achieve the same result.
 

PakProtector

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Joined
Jan 5, 2014
Location
AnnArbor, MI
TDI
Mk.4's and the Cummins
While the sharp cut off looks nice, especially when coated by a violet flicker...I don't particularly like living with it. Even a wee bit of scatter from something else is useful to avoid having everything above the cut off go suddenly dark is not to be despised.
cheers,
Douglas
 

Nero Morg

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Joined
Oct 19, 2017
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OR
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2014 A6 TDI, 2001 Jetta TDI, 2014 Passat TDI
The cutoff may take some getting used to, but I tell you what I don't want to contribute to the group of people who stick LED/HIDs in a stock assembly and blind everyone on the road.

I've had my HIDs for almost 3 years and I've never had an issue with visibility with the sharp cutoff.
 

KrashDH

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Joined
Dec 22, 2013
Location
Washington
TDI
2002 Golf
While the sharp cut off looks nice, especially when coated by a violet flicker...I don't particularly like living with it. Even a wee bit of scatter from something else is useful to avoid having everything above the cut off go suddenly dark is not to be despised.
cheers,
Douglas
Minimizing scatter isn't for looks, it's not for color...it's to oncoming traffic. You do NOT want to throw that light into oncoming traffic's eyes. If you have your cutoff properly adjusted, you have all the light you need. If you have even a "wee" bit of scatter above the cutoff, that's being thrown into oncoming traffic (as well, that scatter isn't going to do you any good for lighting anything up. You cannot adjust that out no matter how far down you point your bulb. The bi-xenon highs are PLENTY bright if you need them in a dark situation. So bright in fact they make my 30" light bar useless. The highs on a projector retrofit will literally drown out a light bar.

To your point on Hella ballasts, I've read through all of the boosting threads (I'm running Hella OEM ballasts on my car and truck). You will hardly notice the difference between 55 and 35W setups. I've compared both side by side. The only thing that is going to come out of running 55W setups is shorter lasting bulbs and potential eye fatigue in road trip situations. I went back to a 35W setup after all of my trials and tribulations with retrofits and research.
 

2002_auto_tdi

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2020
Location
Virginia
TDI
03 5spd wagon and 02 01m sedan
@PakProtector, if you want their headlights, the wiring would be really easy to custom make. For my retrofit, I have completely customized the wiring harness to my liking. Only took a few splices and some off the shelf adapters to make it happen. I rigged it for different things to come on together, and the only things that will be exiting the housing will be the D2S bulb adapters. Everything else will remain as factory, internal.



This isn't great advice currently, as the technology with LED's in projectors has not surpassed an HID bulb in projectors. There's a lot of tech jargon that I won't get into for sake of rambling, but it comes down to how the light is emitted as well as the projector bowls. You can't (well you CAN technically) just slap an LED bulb into a projector housing and expect it to perform the same as an HID in the projector bowl housing. Today's projectors are designed to reflect the light of an HID capsule, not an LED. With an LED bulb you're going to get a lot of dark spotting, as well as a terrible hotspot, which means you aren't going to get the light dispersed in an even fashion. You'll still get a cutoff, but it won't be quite as clean or reach as far as the HID bulb.

That being said, Morimoto makes LED retrofit projectors. But the quality of light output is still sub par to that of a true HID retrofit. There's been a lot of side by side tests. Their Bi-LED projectors also cost $400 for the set. As well, the LED's are built in, meaning there's no changing a bulb if one goes out. You're dismantling your retrofit to take the entire projector out and have it replaced.

For the price and quality, a true HID retrofit is still the way to go. All the companies doing retrofits for these vehicles (across all manufacturers) are only offering it with HID's for a reason. If the tech was there for LED bulbs to work in a standard projector, it'd be here already. Same way that if they could design an LED/HID bulb that drops into a standard reflector housing and have the sharp cutoff and no scattered light, it'd be here. Those are challenging and take R&D time.

I do think in the future that they may achieve the technology in an LED bulb that can drop into a projector and surpass the quality of an HID and I'm all for that, but it's going to take a projector that is designed for said LED. The big challenge being there's literally thousands of crap LED bulbs on the market with different arrays of LED's. So one projector will not work for all, it would have to pair with a bulb. Whereas a HID bulb has the same design across ALL the bulbs, so a universal projector can be made for them to achieve the same result.
With that said, I really must have lucked out with the Katana LED bulbs in my Subaru Tribeca B9's projectors. It must have been a case of sheer luck based upon what you took the time to explain (not being sarcastic). The only reason that I did not go the HID route was because the folks using HID were having some hassles with the electrical system (I can't remember exactly what it was). Now LEDs in reflector housings....places like headlight revolution will tell you that they will work out in a reflector headlight and I have seen it work ok but not in every housing.
 

KrashDH

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Dec 22, 2013
Location
Washington
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2002 Golf
With that said, I really must have lucked out with the Katana LED bulbs in my Subaru Tribeca B9's projectors. It must have been a case of sheer luck based upon what you took the time to explain (not being sarcastic). The only reason that I did not go the HID route was because the folks using HID were having some hassles with the electrical system (I can't remember exactly what it was). Now LEDs in reflector housings....places like headlight revolution will tell you that they will work out in a reflector headlight and I have seen it work ok but not in every housing.
Luck is probably part of it. I won't delve any further in this as people usually want to say "well my setup is great". There's no convincing people who aren't willing to have a deeper understanding of all the factors at work (not saying you in particular, just people in general). So my advice would be, if you want the info, spend some time on HIDplanet and researching the types of light, retrofits, and engineering behind it all.
 

2002_auto_tdi

Veteran Member
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Aug 3, 2020
Location
Virginia
TDI
03 5spd wagon and 02 01m sedan
Imo. Ditch HID. Go LED.
You want to look for cree (name brand) and for lux. Lumens means diddly squat.
If you need more info... go over to candelpowerfourms.
Luck is probably part of it. I won't delve any further in this as people usually want to say "well my setup is great". There's no convincing people who aren't willing to have a deeper understanding of all the factors at work (not saying you in particular, just people in general). So my advice would be, if you want the info, spend some time on HIDplanet and researching the types of light, retrofits, and engineering behind it all.
I would love to say that my setup is great and happy when it actually is, but I will be the first to call it when things don't go well. I know that I should not argue with the often emphasized fact that we lack equipment to verify what our eyes cannot see on forums like candlepower & HIDplanet. However, to me seeing is believing. It's like any experience in life. No one can make a persuasive argument to me that I did not encounter a given thing. It's kind of like voting. They say I don't vote, I can't complain. Yet, I do indeed complain. :)
 

csstevej

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Aug 12, 2004
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north nj
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2001 golf tdi 4 door auto now a manual, mine, 2000 golf 2 door M/T son's,daughters 98 NB non-TDI 2.0, 2003 TDI NB for next daughter, head repaired and on road,gluten for punishment got another tdi 2001NB,another yellow tdi NB
You have any kind of write up or pics?
I have 3 N B’s that I’m not happy with the lighting on these specific MKIV platforms , and considering that my daughter a I have both clocked deers recently I’m looking into doing something else hopefully better that doesn’t cost an arm and leg.
 

KrashDH

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Joined
Dec 22, 2013
Location
Washington
TDI
2002 Golf
You have any kind of write up or pics?
I have 3 N B’s that I’m not happy with the lighting on these specific MKIV platforms , and considering that my daughter a I have both clocked deers recently I’m looking into doing something else hopefully better that doesn’t cost an arm and leg.
If you do a retrofit yourself, you can have some awesome projector HID headlights for under $200, which will out perform anything on the market (other than higher quality projectors, which will cost more money). Look into DDM tuning retrofit kits. Modifying the headlight housing/bucket and installing the projector is the DIY part.
 

benmarks

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 14, 2003
Location
Portland, OR
TDI
2004 Jetta GLS Sedan Platinum Gray
Re cutoff and HID's, I don't know if this is the case with the retrofits, but the OEM ones are designed to allow a little bit of upward light in the curbside direction so that road signs, etc. will be illuminated. They even have sliders inside of them so that, if you're in a left hand drive country and you cross a border into a right hand drive country, you can reverse this so that you don't blind other drivers and still maintain slight illumination of road signs. Technically, there are separate part numbers for LHD and RHD OEM HID's, because the slider isn't optimal, but it does help.

I will also mention, for anyone who might go looking for them, that VW labels them as left hand TRAFFIC and right hand TRAFFIC. I didn't realize there was a difference at first, and very nearly bought the wrong ones. There are still some pairs out there on eBay, etc. The Golf ones seem more prevalent than the Jetta ones.

With that said, some of these aftermarket are superior to the OEM ones, but if you can find a well priced set, it's still a pretty good upgrade.

I second the idea to watch videos at places like Headlight Revolution. Some of their comparison videos are pretty shocking when it comes to LED vs. HID. I agree that the general consensus is that Xenon bulbs are still the top of the market.
 

Mongler98

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Mar 23, 2011
Location
COLORADO (SE of Denver)
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98 Jetta TDI AHU 1.9L (944 TDI swap in progress) I moved so now i got nothing but an AHU in a garage on a pallet.
@PakProtector, if you want their headlights, the wiring would be really easy to custom make. For my retrofit, I have completely customized the wiring harness to my liking. Only took a few splices and some off the shelf adapters to make it happen. I rigged it for different things to come on together, and the only things that will be exiting the housing will be the D2S bulb adapters. Everything else will remain as factory, internal.



This isn't great advice currently, as the technology with LED's in projectors has not surpassed an HID bulb in projectors. There's a lot of tech jargon that I won't get into for sake of rambling, but it comes down to how the light is emitted as well as the projector bowls. You can't (well you CAN technically) just slap an LED bulb into a projector housing and expect it to perform the same as an HID in the projector bowl housing. Today's projectors are designed to reflect the light of an HID capsule, not an LED. With an LED bulb you're going to get a lot of dark spotting, as well as a terrible hotspot, which means you aren't going to get the light dispersed in an even fashion. You'll still get a cutoff, but it won't be quite as clean or reach as far as the HID bulb.

That being said, Morimoto makes LED retrofit projectors. But the quality of light output is still sub par to that of a true HID retrofit. There's been a lot of side by side tests. Their Bi-LED projectors also cost $400 for the set. As well, the LED's are built in, meaning there's no changing a bulb if one goes out. You're dismantling your retrofit to take the entire projector out and have it replaced.

For the price and quality, a true HID retrofit is still the way to go. All the companies doing retrofits for these vehicles (across all manufacturers) are only offering it with HID's for a reason. If the tech was there for LED bulbs to work in a standard projector, it'd be here already. Same way that if they could design an LED/HID bulb that drops into a standard reflector housing and have the sharp cutoff and no scattered light, it'd be here. Those are challenging and take R&D time.

I do think in the future that they may achieve the technology in an LED bulb that can drop into a projector and surpass the quality of an HID and I'm all for that, but it's going to take a projector that is designed for said LED. The big challenge being there's literally thousands of crap LED bulbs on the market with different arrays of LED's. So one projector will not work for all, it would have to pair with a bulb. Whereas a HID bulb has the same design across ALL the bulbs, so a universal projector can be made for them to achieve the same result.
yes you are correct... at a certain price point.. for $40 you can get a pair of HID's that are great... for about 6 months, too many parts made too cheaply. ballasts and relay systems are garbage at anything under $200.. but for $25 you can get a set of drop in LEDs that unlike most junk HID's (for the price) will not kill oncomers eyes.


apples to apples, LED's win hand down due to cost and complexity issues. there is plenty of trash on both sides to stay away from and no real way to tell unless you understand what words mean in the flashlight world.
 

Nero Morg

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2014 A6 TDI, 2001 Jetta TDI, 2014 Passat TDI
So @Mongler98 can I retrofit LEDs into my HID housings?
Genuine question, do they use similar light cutoff methods? Or are they totally different?
 

Nuje

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Island near Vancouver
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2015 Sportwagen; Golf GLS 2002 (swap from 2L gas); 2016 A3 e-tron
I know you directed that question at @Mongler98, but I think the answer is posted above by another user: You take your chances and you might get lucky and they'll work well. I stuck a set of LEDs into a projector and they were garbage - light all over the place.

But then just this past weekend, I built up a set of Golf headlights with H1 projectors and then realized I didn't have any H1 HID bulbs on hand, so i plopped a set of H1 4300K LED bulbs in there to see what they looked like....and they were shockingly good. Not as good as the 4500K Morimoto HIDs I have in my D2S setup, but still pretty decent - sharp cut-off, good even light spread, etc.

The biggest challenge you'll have with LEDs there in Oregon is wet roads in the winter time; I was shocked at how 6000K (very white, bordering on bluish) lights could light up dry concrete in Los Angeles (visiting), but when we got home (Vancouver Island) in the winter....they were terrible. It was like there was no light hitting the pavement. It's pretty tough to find ~4500K LED bulbs (a yellowish white) - I looked long and hard to find the above-mentioned set, and they do a pretty good job on both wet and dry roads around here.
 

Nuje

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Island near Vancouver
TDI
2015 Sportwagen; Golf GLS 2002 (swap from 2L gas); 2016 A3 e-tron
As for building up your own lights: It's really not that hard. There are complex ways of doing it which will definitely yield better results (see @KrashDH's project), but if you want better lights than stock, and want them by the end of the weekend....this can get you there. (KrashDH, whose lights are going to be spectacular - I've followed and admired his work on them - I'm sure and those will put these to shame... let's just say it's been more than a weekend or two that he's been working away on those. ;))

(Note: most of my experience is on a Golf; I did a set for a Jetta once, but can't remember all the details. Everything would be the same, except that the wiring is more complicated due to the OEM bulb being a dual-filament H4.)

1. Start with OEM housings - find a set from a wreck. Car that came to me last week for TB job ("oh - one of my bulbs is burned out; can you look into that, too"...) has TYC housings....gross! Flimsy plastic, reflector bowls are already dull, bulb holders aren't solid, etc.

2. Find a 2.5" mini H1 (bulb format) projector - Nilight is a brand from Amazon i've bought a couple times in the past. Not the greatest, but they work well on a budget.

3. Bake the headlights for ~8min. at 200°F to soften up the lens goo. Take 'em out, pull off the lenses.

4. Take out the H7 bulbs and their holders (and the little "hat" that protrudes from the reflector bowl).

5. Stick the H1 projector through the bulb-holder hole and lock it down with the locknut; the kits come with a silicone washer to cushion and help centre the projector).

There's a little wiring connector for activating the bi-xenon shutter - I'm not sure what the makers think we're going to plug that into, but I always just cut the little connector off and splice the wires into the high-beam's wiring inside the headlight.

How you proceed from here is up to you. You can put the bulbs in and find a level surface and check if they're level and aimed at least somewhat straight. Or you can put the lenses back on, cook them for another 8min to soften and help seal, then put them on the car and work on levelling there. If you have a portable 12V power supply, doing it out of the car is probably recommended, but I've been able to get the left-right level, but have had to use shims under the mounting tabs occasionally to get them aimed high enough.
(You can turn the adjusting dials only so much....and then the headlight's interior bulb-holding assembly falls off and you're taking the headlights out of the car and futzing with things that don't wanna go where you want them to go and you wonder why you even started on this. :D

Recommendation: Find or wait until you have a spare set of housings you can work on; maybe it takes you a few hours, but maybe it takes a few hours one day, then a few hours the next day and they're still not usable, but NOW you (or worse, someone else) needs the car and your headlights are a mess.
Having a spare set: play with them when you have the time and mind-space for the work, expect setbacks and work your way through them, pat yourself on the back and point out to people who don't care how nice and sharp that cut-off line is and oh - notice the little bump-up at the shoulder...pretty cool, amirite? :D
 
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PakProtector

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Jan 5, 2014
Location
AnnArbor, MI
TDI
Mk.4's and the Cummins
I crammed in a set of 3" D2S projectors into a set of e-code Jetta buckets. Get them running and mounted, and back on the car *BEFORE putting the lens back on. Confirm rotation, and alignment( it is a PITA taking off the lenses). When you have things lined up and tightened up, then put the lenses back on. The mini-H1 projectors are slightly shorter. IME, the beam pattern on the C212's is better than the Mori 7.0's.
I have no idear what shipping time will be now, but it was less than 3 weeks when I got my pair. Get the Mori bulb mounts from Retrofit source. The Aozoom stuff is built nicely; they were the D2S ones I used for my son.
cheers,
Douglas
 

Nero Morg

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Oct 19, 2017
Location
OR
TDI
2014 A6 TDI, 2001 Jetta TDI, 2014 Passat TDI
Lots of good information here. @Nuje my point I was trying to make is both are good options, but you have to have a good setup for each to work. Even if the setup is good, you also have to have a good quality bulb.

I just recently changed the bulbs on my HID's, since one started going pink on me. Changed both from the 450k spectrum to 600k, noticeable color difference, buuuuut the hangup I have now is the $15 bulb pair I bought off Amazon, definitely has a lot lower lumens than what I had before. Still can see just fine, even with my sharp cutoff.

I definitely encourage people to do research on what others have done, and do some trial and error as well. Only way you'll get a good light assembly. Unless you actually wait for a vendor, like Midwest, to get you a pair. Real shame he's talking such a long time that it's getting people to cancel orders, they really are a well built setup.
 
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