It's the little things, is it not? Well it really does not get much smaller than a couple LED lights when it comes to 'modifying' your car, but boy do I like what I see!
In my quest for OEM+ changes to my little 1.8T the LED plate lights were a no-brainer, except that I struggled internally with the fact that each LED light would cost me well over $100CDN at the dealer, and that was WITH a discount! While I am a HUGE stickler when it comes to using OEM parts, I wasn't about to shell out $200+ on a pair of plate lights.. Or was I?
I have seen many variations of the LED plate light for our car (and earlier models), and I knew that resistors or multiple LED bulbs were not for me, if I was going to 'cheap out' I was going to at least get ones that looked like their OEM counterparts.
After ordering a set of Chinese-made LED plate lamps I came across a great price on a pair of OEM LED plate lamps so I ended up buying those as well and figured it would be a good opportunity for a comparison!
Here is a comparison shot.. Any guesses as to which is the OEM one and which is the Chinese version?
How about now?
Well now I'm not even sure..
Here you can see a bit of rough finishing to the mold near where it plugs in..
Compared to..
In all honesty though, very true reproduction..
Probably the most obvious difference at first glance. Figure it out yet? The German-made one is the green/clear lens whereas the Chinese-made one is the white/frosted lens.
And here is what you really want to see. Obviously the left is an LED and the right is halogen bulb, but which LED is it?!
Here is one of each, but which is which?
I know it's REALLY difficult to see in these pictures (sorry for not being able to capture what my eyes saw). The Chinese-made LED is on the left (driver's side), the German-made LED is on the right (passenger side). You MAY be able to see an ever so slight difference in temperature/colour - the Chinese LED is actually whiter! The difference is more noticeable in real life, and if I were to guess I would say the Chinese LED is about 500K to 750K whiter.
Aside from the differences already mentioned, I thought it important to mention one other difference which I found to be significant.. The German-made LED housings simply fit better, more OEM. This is not to say the Chinese-made ones were ill-fitting, just that they didn't 'click' in the same, nor were they easy to remove as I actually struggled with removing them once they were plugged and clipped in to the bumper. Take it for what its worth, the tighter fitting Chinese LEDs may be more desirable?
And in case you were wondering, yes, they both throw a bulb out error until coded for LED plate lamps. I cheated and used the app with my OBDEleven device to code for LED plate lamps- worked like a charm!
Here is the final shot, can you guess which pair I ultimately settled on? (I should note I did not change the intensity of the LEDs, this is at 100%. Some choose to increase intensity to 127% when installing LED plate lamps)
In my quest for OEM+ changes to my little 1.8T the LED plate lights were a no-brainer, except that I struggled internally with the fact that each LED light would cost me well over $100CDN at the dealer, and that was WITH a discount! While I am a HUGE stickler when it comes to using OEM parts, I wasn't about to shell out $200+ on a pair of plate lights.. Or was I?
I have seen many variations of the LED plate light for our car (and earlier models), and I knew that resistors or multiple LED bulbs were not for me, if I was going to 'cheap out' I was going to at least get ones that looked like their OEM counterparts.
After ordering a set of Chinese-made LED plate lamps I came across a great price on a pair of OEM LED plate lamps so I ended up buying those as well and figured it would be a good opportunity for a comparison!
Here is a comparison shot.. Any guesses as to which is the OEM one and which is the Chinese version?
How about now?
Well now I'm not even sure..
Here you can see a bit of rough finishing to the mold near where it plugs in..
Compared to..
In all honesty though, very true reproduction..
Probably the most obvious difference at first glance. Figure it out yet? The German-made one is the green/clear lens whereas the Chinese-made one is the white/frosted lens.
And here is what you really want to see. Obviously the left is an LED and the right is halogen bulb, but which LED is it?!
Here is one of each, but which is which?
I know it's REALLY difficult to see in these pictures (sorry for not being able to capture what my eyes saw). The Chinese-made LED is on the left (driver's side), the German-made LED is on the right (passenger side). You MAY be able to see an ever so slight difference in temperature/colour - the Chinese LED is actually whiter! The difference is more noticeable in real life, and if I were to guess I would say the Chinese LED is about 500K to 750K whiter.
Aside from the differences already mentioned, I thought it important to mention one other difference which I found to be significant.. The German-made LED housings simply fit better, more OEM. This is not to say the Chinese-made ones were ill-fitting, just that they didn't 'click' in the same, nor were they easy to remove as I actually struggled with removing them once they were plugged and clipped in to the bumper. Take it for what its worth, the tighter fitting Chinese LEDs may be more desirable?
And in case you were wondering, yes, they both throw a bulb out error until coded for LED plate lamps. I cheated and used the app with my OBDEleven device to code for LED plate lamps- worked like a charm!
Here is the final shot, can you guess which pair I ultimately settled on? (I should note I did not change the intensity of the LEDs, this is at 100%. Some choose to increase intensity to 127% when installing LED plate lamps)
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