GOLFMK8
GOLFMK7
GOLFMK6
GOLFMKV

Golf 7 R20 Replica HID Headlights

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ryanjames20

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
Sydney, Australia
The lights are coming along nicely Ed :)

@ohsnapzombies
They look amazing on your GTi !
If you had the correct grill for the Xenon's it would look very OEM.

Can't wait for my lights to arrive :D
I shall be doing the RHD testing representing Australia.
I'm expecting big things Ed...
 
P

paulywalnuts6

New member
Location
Rochester, NY
Love this thread. I've been kicking myself about not getting the lighting package and this is helping me feel better about it. Just gotta save up my pennies and I'll be getting some of these! Thanks everyone for your contributions all of your cars look great! :)
 
K

.:KindiGTI

Go Kart Champion
Location
Muscat,Oman
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N10S

Ready to race!
Location
St.Louis area
I just installed my retrofit HID headlights this past weekend. I am very picky about fitment and quality and will admit I have been skeptical regarding the quality and performance of this retrofit lighting kit. The Black Friday pricing won me over and having installed and lived with the lights for a week I am happy to report that the lights were well packed, well built, and the kit has most of the items needed for the installation. The performance? Other than the lack of auto leveling, these headlights perform great and with both sets of LED horseshoe DRL’s lit up on each headlight, it makes for a really nice looking light array especially with the LED fogs on. My OEM HID lighting comparison benchmark experiences include a MKV Autobahn GTI, a Shinka RX8, 2x S4’s, and an EVO VIII.

Regarding the kit, I feel like it is a fairly comprehensive kit with almost everything you need. I work in a technology field where we provide communications kits solutions for the railroads though, so I am critical when it comes to kits of any sort. Physically I think the kit is 99% complete as far as components are concerned. Documentation is lacking a bit though. The first thing that would make this kit perfect would be a single sheet “Box BOM” (Bill of Material) that lists every item included in the kit by PN, Description, and Quantity. This helps the buyer immediately account for everything in the box confirming that the kit is 100% complete. The second thing is to enclose more thorough installation reference details. Yes, we are in a “green” society, but the online DIY in hardcopy would be nice, and also to provide a little more information in said DIY regarding the mounting, installation, and wiring connections of the HID bulb assemblies, Ballasts, and main headlight wiring harnesses.

Concerning those points, there are certainly a large number of various install pics and videos, as well as Ed’s DIY, to reference online so do yourself a favor and take time to watch / read those videos and threads before staring the installation. My experience is that these tutorials tend to deal with the physical removal of the old headlights and the installation of the new headlights, and are less oriented to the wiring and headlight set-up. I personally knew the headlights required some assembly (bulbs, wiring harnesses, ballasts, etc.) so that was never a concern for me, but for anyone purchasing these headlights they do need to understand that the headlights themselves are not “plug and play” so to speak. As noted the one thing I found to be missing were pics or info of the actual bulb, ballast, and wiring harness installation. It is somewhat intuitive, but not totally. There is a wiring diagram on the ballast box. Its pretty straightforward but that's basically all you get.



I finally got around to installing the headlights this past Sunday. It's an easy job if you are mechanically inclined, but I also gave myself plenty of time and segmented the project into stages to make it easier.

Here's the steps I took to install:

1) I started the project by laying out all of the various components and making sure I had everything I needed. Parts, 3m tape, tools, painter's tape to protect the body edges. This was the point I took inventory of everything in the box and tried to verify how the various components were interconnected. This was the pre-assembly dry run.

2) Next I assembled each headlight, installing the HID bulbs in the housing, mounting and connecting the ballast for each headlight, and installing the main wiring harness. There were several things which were fuzzy for me and although I had the ballast box circuit diagram there were some gaps. Here are some observations:

· Regarding the ballast wiring harness. One set of wires is connectorized to wires that run through the rubber grommet sealing the HID bulb access housing and connect directly into the HID bulbs themselves. There is another set of wires coming out of the ballast that also run through the rubber grommet and end in spade lugs. It’s not clear what those connect to until you open the rear HID housing cap and see that the mating spade lugs are floating free inside the headlight housing. Basically you just connect spade lug to spade lug and they continue to float free (albeit in a sealed environment) behind the HID bulb receptacle
· About that sealed headlight bucket. The other unknown item included in the kit is two extra black silicone washers. I noticed when I installed the HID wiring grommet into the back cap that they were not snug. I was able to slide the washers over the wires and over the backside of the grommet placing the silicone washer between the grommet and the back cover. With the washers in place the fit is perfect and is snug and should be dust and water-tight. I assume that this is the purpose for these extra silicone washers. If not I have no idea what they are for.
· The main harness at the bottom of the lights clips easily into place and the integral relay (or whatever it is) in the small sealed block integrated into the main wiring harness adapter comes with 3M tape allowing the item to be installed directly onto the rear headlight body adjacent to where the main cable harness connects at the headlight. This makes for a neat installation.
· Ballast mounting is left up to the installer/owner. Although the headlight kit does come with Ballast mounting brackets and hardware, to be honest I did not see a simple way to utilize these. Based on feedback from others and various pics, I used double-sided 3M tape and mounted each ballast on the upper side of the back headlight enclosure. There is a flat spot on the side of the headlight housing that’s perfect for this kind of 3M tape mounting option. Others have mounted under the headlight and that’s also an option.
· Once the above steps are completed your headlights are “pre-assembled” and ready to install.


3) Disconnect power and proceed to remove the Halogen headlights. Grill first, fender liners next, vertical fascia clamp nuts, and headlights last. You have seen the pics, vids etc., so I won’t bore you with that. A couple of comments though.
· The top of the grill comes loose pretty easily but the lower part not so much. Just remember that the top part gets pulled back, and the bottom part gets pulled up. The lower tabs insert vertically and insert into the bumper fascia to tie everything together.
· Once you remove the fender liners and have access to the two vertically oriented 10mm nuts that clamp onto the front bumper fascia along the fender line, realize that these nuts tighten to clamp onto the bumper fascia tab that inserts there. Totally removing these is not necessary and since they are nylon they can be loosened without any major fear of the loose nuts falling off to be lost somewhere under or in the car belly pan.
· The single Torx screw which resides under the upper side of the bumper fascia to secure the headlight from the side doesn’t seem to have many threads and won’t take much too loosen and remove. Same for the re-install.
· You have to have the front bumper fascia pulled forward for clearance when removing and installing the headlights. This is where a second set of hands is nice.
· Once the old headlights are out remove the two clip retainer/adjusters from the halogens and re-install on the HID lamps. These appear to have some vertical adjustment built into them so watch that these adjusters don’t turn when tightening the main fixing bolts. Although the halogen light grill redline doesn’t match-up exactly with the HID headlights, some seem worse than others and I wonder if this isn’t due to these adjusters being set differently? There is also a single screw that threads into the front corner of each headlamp that will need to be moved from the halogens to the HID's.
· Re-install headlights, fender liners and grill in reverse order.


4) The last thing I did was to connect each HID + wire to the correlating side of the battery connection fuse harness and then run these wires to the positive battery clamp.
· The wire length is longer for the passenger side and provides enough length to allow that wire to be run along the inner left fender well and then across the underside of the wiper cowl shelf.
· There is a fiber material which seals this area under that cowl, and you can lightly lift the top edge of this material and then slip the wire behind this across the width of the car where the wire then exits and can be directed through to the positive battery clamp. Out of sight for a clean installation. The other side is much more direct and easy to dress. Overall a very well thought out kit.
· The nut on the positive battery clamp is a retained pinch nut and won’t come off easily so I simply cut a small section out of the ring terminal to allow it to clear the bolt allowing the nut to be tightened.



The test lighting verified that everything was working with all lights as expected. I did make some initial beam adjustments and may still fine tune them a bit, but otherwise all is right with this product. My feedback would be that this is a great kit if you have a GTI with Halogens and would like the HID lighting performance and the edgier look of the LED DRL’s and projectors. The double LED horseshoe’s with the HID’s and LED fogs lit look really great and set the lights apart from the OE HID’s. Don’t get me wrong, given the choice I would certainly prefer the stock HID set-up, but for the price these are an excellent option.

Thanks Ed!!
 
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N10S

Ready to race!
Location
St.Louis area
Here are a few more pics:

Ballast mounted to headlight


Spade Lug Connector



Main Headlight Adapter Harness



HID Bulb housing grommet with additional silicone washer



Wired-up and ready to install

 
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N

N10S

Ready to race!
Location
St.Louis area
ohsnapzombies said:
N10S. Great write up.

Just incase anyone is wondering. This is the best price on the LP Grill that i've found. Definitely a must to get those red line perfectly lined up.

http://www.deutscheautoparts.com/View/VW/GTI/MK72015-Present/Exterior/5GM-853-651-H-BTU/4759/504635

Next up I need to code off DRLs and get a Euroswitch.
Click to expand...

Thanks, hey btw...I wished that I had read your post before I installed my lights. The drivers side main wire harness was neatly tucked below the wiper washer fluid tube and I could not get the thing out of there without loosening my already installed headlight. To be certain I was not amused by that mistake. I tried to blame it on my helper (my wife) and that was obviously a bad plan... ;)
 
O

ohsnapzombies1

Ready to race!
Location
WA
N10S said:
Thanks, hey btw...I wished that I had read your post before I installed my lights. The drivers side main wire harness was neatly tucked below the wiper washer fluid tube and I could not get the thing out of there without loosening my already installed headlight. To be certain I was not amused by that mistake. I tried to blame it on my helper (my wife) and that was obviously a bad plan... ;)
Click to expand...

Yea. I made sure that harness was out. The harness I didn't connect were the ones provided that connected to the lights. That was a pain to stick my hand down in there and finagle it in with my finger tips..I'm still planning on removing the lights again because I did not "tape" that little box on the harness to anything.

I really love these things. Especially after they're dialed in.

 
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edward@becautoparts.com

Go Kart Champion
Location
Vancouver, BC
January 4th 2015

Welcome to 2015!!

I really want to thank you all for your contributions about the lights, and will certainly update the headlight kits with a bit better instructions, and contents. That was a great idea.

In terns of stock, I still have the GTI and Golf R version available and in stock for now.

Golf R - 5 sets available
GTI - 7 sets available

I will be getting a restock by mid-February, so if you don't want to wait if I run out, order while you can.

In terms of reliability of the lights, I had one headlight without working turn indicators on one light, I am sending a replacement led controller to the customer to see if that fixes the problem, if not, than he will get a new headlight. Aside from that, and a couple of bad ballasts, these lights have been performing very well.

For the grilles, I will look into if I can get any replica GTI and Golf R grilles, they should only cost half of the lowest advertised price for the real ones, so you can get the grill to line up with the lights properly.
 
E

edward@becautoparts.com

Go Kart Champion
Location
Vancouver, BC
Addenum

For the RHD Version of the lights, One set was recently sent to a customer in Australia for testing, and once that is complete and successful, I will likely start up a Group Buy for the RHD market, eg, Australia, UK, Singapore, etc.

I hope to be able to get this started by early Feb at the latest.
 
R

ryanjames20

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
Sydney, Australia
:) Received my RHD headlights for testing in Australia !
Have very little time to take photos but I got a chance to look at them
and damn they are massive!
In the box they are packaged extremely well, the HID bulbs where inside
the actual headlight, which I know is different to others.
I'm assuming they were pre-calibrated for RHD vehicles/beam pattern.. at the factory?

Included in the boxes where
2 x Headlights
2 x HID ballasts
2 x Battery cable (One for each light) - To run from ballast to battery
Brackets for ballasts
(I shall double check this later to confirm there is nothing I missed)

All was well when opening, the lights you can tell are of a premium quality
even if they are replica lights. The detailing inside the light is very professional
and all the fittings and parts around lights are all of high quality.

SHIPPING BUT !
Was sent on the 29th December 2014
Arrived in Sydney, Aus on the 1st Jan 2015
At my door on the 5th Jan 2015
If you're an well understanding fellow like myself, thats a 5 business day turn around time!
Very impressed!

Of course I'm yet to test the lights just yet but everything is off to a great start :D
I'll keep everyone posted!
 
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everlast556

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
Greater Detroit, MI
ohsnapzombies said:
N10S. Great write up.

Just incase anyone is wondering. This is the best price on the LP Grill that i've found. Definitely a must to get those red line perfectly lined up.

http://www.deutscheautoparts.com/View/VW/GTI/MK72015-Present/Exterior/5GM-853-651-H-BTU/4759/504635

Next up I need to code off DRLs and get a Euroswitch.
Click to expand...

How is this grille any different then the stock GTI grille? I can't imagine VW took the time and money to produce two sets of GTI grilles with the only difference being the red line is a little higher.


ETA: Hmmm, looking at my grille vs the linked one, it does indeed appear to be different. So strange. Seems like VW could of saved money just producing the one grille.
 
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