Xenon lights or not?

**steve46** · 20-12-2007,03:52 PM

Hey thanks for that. My grand cherokee jeep has a 8mm bolt that is a long pin 400mm long that you unscrew & the whole headlamp unit comes out. Thought the germans were supposed to be better at this sort of thing. Looks like my best pink floyd cd & elastoplast at the ready. Cheers

**gazza007** · 20-12-2007,03:57 PM

Originally Posted by gstewar1

I changed the bulbs on my 1.9tdi when we got it and what a job it was.

I dont no if with yours being the 2.0 if there would be space to move but i did lose a fair wee bit of skin off my knuckles.

There is a Rubber cap that goes over the lighting unit, remove this and then feel for the cable on the bulb and remove that. It just clips off.

Now here is the trick, get and old CD and use it as a mirror and you can look right inside the headlamp and see how everything goes in etc.

The total time it took me to do this was about 25-30 mins i think if i remeber correctly.

And i didnt have to remove any panels or anyting.

hope this helps

What bulbs did you use & was it an improvement?

**gstewar1** · 20-12-2007,04:08 PM

I used Philips Blue Vision +30% Xenon Bulbs as they were being recommended at the time by Auto express. They are brilliant bulbs but tbh I cannot really say what the old ones were like because I just upgrade the bulbs automatically, but these ones are really good and give a nice crisp white light.

**Frelon** · 20-12-2007,04:36 PM

I managed to obtain some 100 watt H7s on eBay for my Golf Plus, and what a difference they make. Of course you can only legally use these "off road"

**Crasher** · 20-12-2007,04:40 PM

Your headlight switch will burn out very quickly, the headlight feeds should have relays fitted to do this.

**Frelon** · 21-12-2007,12:17 PM

Well Crasher you may not realise this but the headlights on the Golf Plus (and probably all late VW's) are switched by a relay!

**Crasher** · 21-12-2007,02:25 PM

Painfully aware, the very expensive to replace J519 onboard supply control unit (3C0 937 049 AL, £201.74 inc. VAT) that cannot take a near 45% increase in loading.

**gazza007** · 24-12-2007,11:43 AM

Originally Posted by gstewar1

I used Philips Blue Vision +30% Xenon Bulbs as they were being recommended at the time by Auto express. They are brilliant bulbs but tbh I cannot really say what the old ones were like because I just upgrade the bulbs automatically, but these ones are really good and give a nice crisp white light.

I'm gonna change mine after Xmas, I think the light is poor from the std bulbs

happy Xmas

**Frelon** · 26-12-2007,10:22 AM

Well Crasher, I wonder what Autobulbs Direct have to say about your warnings?

They indicate on their website..

3) Do I need to modify my car in any way to use these bulbs?
No. These bulbs work on the same power ratings as your existing bulbs so will require no modifications. The exception is the high wattage bulbs which may require you to upgrade the fuse to a higher rating.

...so just a fuse upgrade then.

**Crasher** · 26-12-2007,02:47 PM

The fuse requiring upgrading would also mean the switch as well, that is common sense but they are looking at this subject from the perspective of car manufactures from A to Z where they may have found you can get away with this on most, I only work on VAG. I have seen numerous instances of switch failure due to 80/100 bulbs over the years and in fact it happened to me back in December 1991 when I put 80/100 bulbs in my Golf 1 GTI and then drove to Carlisle from Nottingham. On the way back I turned the lights on and had no dipped beam as the steering column dip/main switch had burnt out. On the Golf 2, the main light switch fails first as on the Golf 3 and 4. My wife’s Golf 2 has a relay (five) for each filament (except the grill spots which are one relay between two) and these are mounted above the fuse box and I have done the same to my Golf 1 and 2 but not my Octavia, yet! Yesterday on the way back down the motorway the lights on my Octavia were so bad the wife had to slow down as she could not see where she was going. An interesting effect of the relays is that some people may be happy with the improvement these alone give and so you would remain legal. A voltage drop test between the powered bulb connection and the battery positive terminal shows a volt drop of around 3 volts without relays and this reduces to around 0.1v with relays, even using the original wiring. In fact I don’t usually bother to upgrade the wiring as it makes so little difference. The exception is my Golf 1 which I am currently fettling and I rebuilt the harness with 2.5-mm core wire instead of the original 1.5-mm.