LED headlights

[Jr mason]

Has anyone installed LED bulbs in the OEM housings? How is the light projection?

My 01 used to be my wife's daily driver but now she's working from home (permanent) and I have taken over the car to commute to work and back. The lights have always sucked but she always left in the daylight and came home before dark so they were rarely an issue. My commute is always in the dark in the morning and sometimes in the evening during the winter. I have to do something before I wax a deer (or worse).


Thanks!

 

[Lex Tdi]

Shop by Car Model - VW Jetta :: MK4 (1999-2005)

Browse all products in the Shop by Car Model - VW Jetta :: MK4 (1999-2005) category from deAutoLED.

deautokey.com

-I have in my 2013 passat and just put in my 03 that i'm fixing up... I have had zero issues or codes thrown. Had one start to flicker after having for more than a year and he sent me a brand new set for my passat with no questions asked... There are plenty of junk ones on ebay and amazon for cheap. I'd rather just not deal with that.

 

[super1]

I put these on and they have been amazing, just a little tricky putting the clip over the base but after that you’ll be stunned on how bright they are!
Also buff your headlight lenses

https://www.amazon.com/Cougar-Motor-H7-Headlight-Conversion/dp/B07VB7VXDN

 

[KrashDH]

Please don't put LED or HIDs in STOCK reflector style housings. They scatter light everywhere and blind those of us that are driving towards you. The reflector design is for halogen bulbs light output, not the output from HID or LED bulbs. As well, your hotspots will be terrible.

The cutoffs have gotten better from adjustable LEDs over the years, but they still scatter light. Do a proper projector retrofit if you want more light output.

 

[benmarks]

A good resource for this can be the reseller www.theretrofitsource.com. I concur with the statement that there are plenty of junk bulbs out there. Quality and reliability can fluctuate wildly with automative LED's. The Retrofit Source has a couple options for a MK4. Just be careful, it can be easy to melt your housings with the wrong bulb if it has poor heat dissipation. It can also be easy to blind oncoming drivers if the orientation of the bulbs is incorrect since MK4 housings weren't really designed for LED bulbs.

 

[benmarks]

Posted simultaneously... but I agree with KrashDH too. I just assume people are going to do it anyway And, if so, you can mitigate some of those issues.

 

[ekincaid]

Please don't put LED or HIDs in STOCK reflector style housings. They scatter light everywhere and blind those of us that are driving towards you. The reflector design is for halogen bulbs light output, not the output from HID or LED bulbs. As well, your hotspots will be terrible.

Any thoughts for some good halogen bulbs around 6000 lumens?

 

[benmarks]

I don't know what works well in New Beetle headlights specifically, but I am a fan of Sylvania/OSRAM bulbs overall. The ZXE model is their top of the line bulb which has a whiter light than their standard halogen bulbs. The Silverstar is next down and will have a yellower light similar to stock (but brighter.) I used Sylvania ZEVO LED bulbs in all of my Jetta's interior and exterior bulb housings (other than my headlights) with great results.

 

[Jr mason]

Please don't put LED or HIDs in STOCK reflector style housings. They scatter light everywhere and blind those of us that are driving towards you. The reflector design is for halogen bulbs light output, not the output from HID or LED bulbs. As well, your hotspots will be terrible.

The cutoffs have gotten better from adjustable LEDs over the years, but they still scatter light. Do a proper projector retrofit if you want more light output.

What do you recommend?

 

[Jr mason]

Thanks to all others that have answered. I recently retrofitted my 2014 truck with reflector style housings with LED bulbs and they have been great. Light output increased exponentially and I've yet to get "high beamed". Just looking for experiences on these as I know there is a major generational gap in what I am comparing.

Thanks again!

 

[KrashDH]

What do you recommend?

It depends, are you a DIY person (for a retrofit) or are you paying someone to do it? A projector retrofit can run you $500+ for a setup. DIY you can do it for a couple hundred.

Thanks to all others that have answered. I recently retrofitted my 2014 truck with reflector style housings with LED bulbs and they have been great. Light output increased exponentially and I've yet to get "high beamed". Just looking for experiences on these as I know there is a major generational gap in what I am comparing.

Thanks again!

I have a Cummins as well for which I have retrofitted projectors into, so I understand the truck And car game when it comes to light output, It doesn't matter if you get high beamed or not, it's how the light bounces off the reflectors. Reflectors were never meant to direct LED or HID light properly or equal to how it does a halogen. Except for the ultra new vehicles which some come with LEDs in a reflector designed for them.

It's still scattered light into oncoming traffic because it's got improper cutoff.

To give you an idea of what it takes for a DIY projector retrofit on the Golf, have a read on the thread I made:

DIY Bi-Xenon Projector Retrofit, MKIV Golf

Edit: Make sure to read through the whole thread if you're interested in doing this. I went through iterations of my DIY because of slight issues that I ran into that I needed different modifications for! Edit: For V2.0, check out this thread: http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=498130...

forums.tdiclub.com

As far as the halogen bulbs go, sure you can get the silverstars or something "brighter", but with those the lifespan goes down significantly. Also, 4500-5500k is the sweet spot for rating. None of the 6000k+ blue garbage. Visibility and light usability gets worse

 

[WolfgangVW]

Has anyone installed LED bulbs in the OEM housings? How is the light projection?

My 01 used to be my wife's daily driver but now she's working from home (permanent) and I have taken over the car to commute to work and back. The lights have always sucked but she always left in the daylight and came home before dark so they were rarely an issue. My commute is always in the dark in the morning and sometimes in the evening during the winter. I have to do something before I wax a deer (or worse).


Thanks!

Are your lenses plastic and fogged over ?? If so clean them up with wet sanding them it works great. Just google how to do it. After that maybe a decent bulb upgrade would help. My only issue with the bulbs like silverstars or nighthawks with our cars is they are expensive and usually only last a year before one of the low beams burns out, being both high and low are in same bulb. And you really want the output for the high beam in most cases. My truck has separate complete bulbs for high and low beams and I’ve had a pair of Ultra Silverstars in the high beams for 8 years still work great !
If you can find a set of ecodes it’s a huge improvement!! Even a cheap set is a huge difference from OEM. Not sure how easy it is to find cheaper ecodes anymore and if you’d want to spend the $$ on expensive ones. Another option if you’re driving backroads is buy a light bar on Amazon for a reasonable price , tho that’s not gonna help you if there’s other traffic around. Good luck !!

 

[gforce1108]

I've been running these in my 03 for about a year. Installed a second set in my 2015 Nissan frontier (plus H8 fogs). Bulb pattern is identical to the halogens but brighter and whiter. Not one occurrence of someone flashing me complaining of them being too bright. Can't beat the price either.

Amazon.com

Lowbeam Cutoff:

 

[KrashDH]

@gforce1108 , do you have a true cutoff photo against a different (blank) wall in the dark? It still looks like you have a lot of scattered light above the cutoff line. Just because you haven't gotten flashed doesn't mean that the light isn't being scattered. You will never get a good cutoff from LED's or HID's that had reflectors designed for halogen bulbs, as is the case with our generation cars. LED's weren't even a thing. Heck I don't even think HID's were common or around yet.

Of course everyone with a drop in kit is going to defend their purchase, which is understandable. If I highbeamed everyone that has dropped in HID's or LED's, or improperly aimed headlights, I'd be running around with my highs on all the time. I don't flash people unless it's REALLY bad for me, but I don't have very sensitive eyes. Some people do. Which makes this type of setup dangerous to others.

On my truck, back in the day, I purchased an HID kit and dropped it into the stock reflector housing. I had them aimed low and they were pretty bad for everyone that had to drive towards me. After about a week, I yanked them out and vowed I wouldn't run them again until I retrofitted projectors into the housings, which I did over the next couple weeks (it was my first retrofit). I can't tell you that the light output is 1000% better and there's no issues to oncoming drivers, provided you aim them correctly.

I truly wish people would "encourage" others to do it correctly, for the driving safety of everyone around them. People are already terrible at driving for the most part (ie "distracted"). Now throw a bunch of light into their eyes...recipe for disaster IMO

 

[gforce1108]

@gforce1108 , do you have a true cutoff photo against a different (blank) wall in the dark? It still looks like you have a lot of scattered light above the cutoff line. Just because you haven't gotten flashed doesn't mean that the light isn't being scattered. You will never get a good cutoff from LED's or HID's that had reflectors designed for halogen bulbs, as is the case with our generation cars. LED's weren't even a thing. Heck I don't even think HID's were common or around yet.

Of course everyone with a drop in kit is going to defend their purchase, which is understandable. If I highbeamed everyone that has dropped in HID's or LED's, or improperly aimed headlights, I'd be running around with my highs on all the time. I don't flash people unless it's REALLY bad for me, but I don't have very sensitive eyes. Some people do. Which makes this type of setup dangerous to others.

On my truck, back in the day, I purchased an HID kit and dropped it into the stock reflector housing. I had them aimed low and they were pretty bad for everyone that had to drive towards me. After about a week, I yanked them out and vowed I wouldn't run them again until I retrofitted projectors into the housings, which I did over the next couple weeks (it was my first retrofit). I can't tell you that the light output is 1000% better and there's no issues to oncoming drivers, provided you aim them correctly.

I truly wish people would "encourage" others to do it correctly, for the driving safety of everyone around them. People are already terrible at driving for the most part (ie "distracted"). Now throw a bunch of light into their eyes...recipe for disaster IMO

I'll see what I can find. These have 2 different focal lengths for the LEDs so are designed for a reflector housing - not just a crappy drop in universal light. I've done HID retrofits in a MKIV with projectors so I know what you are getting at (the cutoff is actually too pronounced on the projectors - it's either bright or pitch black... hard to see anything outside that area).

I can tell you one thing - these have much less scatter than most of the new cars with LED lights I see. Those cars have no "projector", just a bunch of LEDs.

 

[Nuje]

Any thoughts for some good halogen bulbs around 6000 lumens?

You may be conflating "6000K" (color temperature), which is a common measure with "lumens", a measure of brightness, like "candlepower".

In general, 6000K makes a fine-looking DRL, but it's crap for driving, as it is close to the blue spectrum; particularly with wet roads, 6000K makes the road and markings very difficult to see. 4500K, or maybe at most 5000K, which is quite a "white" white (as opposed to bluish white of 6000K) is preferable for driving lights.

And if you are talking lumens, of course, the more the better....unless those lumens are being scattered all over the place, which is what happens when a bulb technology (e.g., HID, LED) are in housings not designed for them (almost all reflector housings are designed exclusively for halogen) - as KrashDH pointed out above.

 

[Nuje]

To give you an idea of what it takes for a DIY projector retrofit on the Golf, have a read on the thread I made:

DIY Bi-Xenon Projector Retrofit, MKIV Golf

Edit: Make sure to read through the whole thread if you're interested in doing this. I went through iterations of my DIY because of slight issues that I ran into that I needed different modifications for! Edit: For V2.0, check out this thread: http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=498130...

forums.tdiclub.com

When do we get to see the exciting conclusion to "KrashDH Builds More Lights More Better"?

 

[KrashDH]

When do we get to see the exciting conclusion to "KrashDH Builds More Lights More Better"?

Ha! Well, if you're talking about V2.0...it's been slow. Tearing apart the entire front end of the Cummins took precedence. That was a huge project for a leak I've been chasing for years and it included having to yank the cam and all the top end engine stuff as well. Then I've had nonstop issues with the car...leaks, clutch, battery, etc. Finally have all that stuff wrapped up and the car is running better than it ever has since I've owned it, with no leaks of any fluid at all.

I think I'm probably 80% there on the V2.0 retrofit though. I've got the Morimoto D2S's mounted in the Depo reflector. It was a bit less "plug n play" than I thought it was going to be, although I was able to reuse a couple of their mounting holes which HOPEFULLY will keep the cutoff aligned to how they were when I yanked the Depo ones out of there. But I haven't mounted them to the car yet. If the cutoff is crooked at all, it will be a V3.0, or a modified V2.0 to hold them by the stem instead of their mounting bracket, which I'd rather not do.

I still need to mount the switchback sequential strip on the inside plastic trim piece. I've got all the wiring for that taken care of already so that will be cake. Then there's modifying the back cover because those D2S plugs are a hare to large to fit inside the enclosure, even though it's meant for an HID setup. The 3" D2S's are just a bit too long with the bulb plugged in.

So yeah, as much as I'd like to have them on the car, it's been slow. As well, I just started taking classes (after work) again along with engineering full time, so time in a day is a bit limited for the next, oh, 25 weeks or so haha.

I know, so many excuses right??

 

[ekincaid]

You may be conflating "6000K" (color temperature), which is a common measure with "lumens", a measure of brightness, like "candlepower".

In general, 6000K makes a fine-looking DRL, but it's crap for driving, as it is close to the blue spectrum; particularly with wet roads, 6000K makes the road and markings very difficult to see. 4500K, or maybe at most 5000K, which is quite a "white" white (as opposed to bluish white of 6000K) is preferable for driving lights.

And if you are talking lumens, of course, the more the better....unless those lumens are being scattered all over the place, which is what happens when a bulb technology (e.g., HID, LED) are in housings not designed for them (almost all reflector housings are designed exclusively for halogen) - as KrashDH pointed out above.

I didn't realize I did that. You are correct. I meant Kelvin.