Front drivers indicator bulb permanently on. HID's fitted CCM?

[Dave8220]

Good afternoon, I appreciate this topic has been discussed in the past and some great advice given. I have had HID's fitted in my 2010 octavia VRS been for 3 months and all of a sudden the bulb indicator light has come on and the front drivers indicator is permanently on even with key on so still getting a live feed. I've done the basic fault finding, changed the bulb and checked that the HID'S are canbus friendly but nothing has fitted the problem! Now I'm reading about the CCM? Where in the car is located? I don't really want to put it into the garage because of £££, any advice would be great!

Thank you

[trundlenut]

The hids have killed the CCM, well actually the body control module on the FL cars.

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

[mannyo]

Should have bought normal HIDs and coded the car for HIDs, this is not the first thread where the CCM has been killed by supposedly Canbus friendly HIDs and it won't be the last. Whilst the Canbus friendly HID's stop the bulb failure from coming one, after a period of time the CCM dies because of the current draw.

[ahenners]

Debating fitting HIDS to mine, as have some 4300k non canbus lying around. Will these be ok, or is there still a risk of frying various electric bits in the car?

[trundlenut]

Debating fitting HIDS to mine, as have some 4300k non canbus lying around. Will these be ok, or is there still a risk of frying various electric bits in the car?

Non cantus should be OK if the car is coded correctly with VCDS. BUT some people have had trouble even with non Cambus ones. 2010 cars seem to be more likely to have a problem.

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

[Dave8220]

So bottom line I have to throw it into the garage to be repaired and get rid of the HIDs or find a CCM which can support the lights?

[trundlenut]

Your BCM is dead, it is unlikely you could find one that could cope with canbus safe hids.

Remove the hids, then get a new BCM fitted.

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

[Dave8220]

Trundlenut I really appreciate your help with this! I take it BCM is updated version of CCM? Would not non canbus hids work better? T

[trundlenut]

Trundlenut I really appreciate your help with this! I take it BCM is updated version of CCM? Would not non canbus hids work better? T

The BCM is a single unit which does the job of the CCM and central electrics.

Non canbus hids are less likely to cause a problem but there have been some threads where people have had issues and these seem to be with 2010 cars.

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

[xpower]

The issue isn't with CANbus friendly HID's or not as multiple CCM's have failed, some with CANbus friendly some without.

Mine failed with a normal HID kit and the correct coding, once the CCM was changed it never happened again.

I believe the issue is either 1 of 2 things or a combination although there is no definitive answer:

1) Some CCM's are more prone to failure, different manufacturer or variation in sub components

2) Some HID kits lack suitable suppression allowing AC voltage ripple to pass onto the low voltage side, over time this could breakdown the semiconductor (transistor) inside the CCM. Why this always affects the D/S/F indicator who knows?

[langers2k]

Just to add to what Xpower said, I was reading a thread about this elsewhere recently, admittedly through google translate, but it looks to stem from the mosfet used to power the outputs on the BCM. The mosfet used doesn't handle inductive or capacitive loads well, even less so when it's still using PWM as the load is dumping energy back into the mosfet many times a second.

 

The "canbus friendly" hid kits, have an extra capacitor to fool the car into thinking the bulb is good, this will almost certainly damage the mosfet over time.

 

The "non canbus friendly" hid kits are better in this regard as they are lacking this capacitor. However, depending on the design it's still entirely possible they are still dumping energy into the mosfet (probably much less) which may still be damaging the BCM.

 

The damage is also cumulative so although a kit may work for weeks or months without issue, it still may be slowly damaging the mosfet and will lead to an unexpected failure in the future. It's been suggested that disabling PWM can help with this as it reduces the frequency of these energy dumps to once per light use rather than many times a second, not that there is much conclusive evidence. I'm pretty sure that the voltage is reduced to the dipped beams to extend their lifetime so disabling this may also increase the survival rate of the BCM.

 

I've not had a look at the OEM HID ballasts but I suspect they have either been designed to reduce this or rely on different internals of the BCM (I believe there are different part numbers for HID compatible BCM's) so avoiding this failure mode. There have also been reports of replacement LED bulbs doing similar damage due to the DC-DC convertors using inductors some have onboard.

[paddypaws]

I'm just trying to decide whether to take mine out after reading some worrying reports of damage here. How quickly have people had damage from their HIDs after installation? Mine have been in the car for getting on two years and so far so good. My car is a 2013. Is it only 2010 models displaying the problems?

[silver1011]

This is why the London Colour non-CANBUS kits get very positive reviews. They have proven themselves as very reliable over the years.

 

All the BCM / CCM issues I've read of on Briskoda have related to 2010 model year Octavia's for some reason.

[langers2k]

There are at least a couple of issues with 2012 cars as well, can't say I've noticed any obvious pattern though.

 

My only suggestion would be to make sure you can afford a new BCM if it goes wrong

[xpower]

Mine was a 2012 brand new to me - failed after 12 weeks

[paddypaws]

Was that a London Colour non-CANBUS kit xpower?

[xpower]

No, it was a 55w non-canbus kit from eBay. Once my CCM was replaced I refitted the same kit and never suffered another failure.

[Guest ProfesorDeBuceo]

I can say with 100% certainty that HID's killed not 1 but 2 BCMs on my 2012 vRS, & that was using the correct kit, coding etc.

Luckily both were replaced under warranty, but I've stayed well clear of HIDs since then.

Debated in detail in a previous thread.

[Guest ProfesorDeBuceo]

This is why the London Colour non-CANBUS kits get very positive reviews. They have proven themselves as very reliable over the years.

 

All the BCM / CCM issues I've read of on Briskoda have related to 2010 model year Octavia's for some reason.

 

My kit came from LC & blew 2 BCMs in a 2012.

[silver1011]

Seems 2010 and 2012 cars have the most issues, although I'm guessing this could easily be random.

 

It does seem strange that one car can be fine for years, whereas another can fail after only a few weeks.

 

I'm in my third year on my Superb with a non-CANBUS London Colour kit covering 30,000 miles per year. Admittedly during the summer they get little use but during the winter they are on every day for almost 3 hours at a time.

 

I wonder if things like Coming / Leaving Home headlights significantly increase their usage pattern, but then you'd expect this to affect the OEM xenon's too...

[paddypaws]

Perhaps there different versions of BCM. it would be interesting to know part number or versions of ones that have died.

Mines done 35k miles with HIDs in and they get used alot in the summer as well as winter I work shifts.

 

What kind of money is a new BCM if the worst happens?

[langers2k]

There are plenty of different BCM versions, I believe that 1K0937087Q and 1K0937087R are considered the correct for factory xenons at least based on what various sellers claim. Earlier cars probably use a different 1K0937087 module.

 

A used BCM can be anywhere in the £80-£120 range looking on ebay (for the above) but I suspect low and midline modules will be cheaper. These will need coding and if they are not from a similar Octavia then you might have problems as VCDS is unable to access all the light config. From a dealer I would expect about £400-£500 fitted if my memory serves me based on other threads.

 

On a side note, if anyone has a dead BCM I could play with that would be great!

[paddypaws]

Thanks Langers2k. How do you tell which unit you have in your car? It would be nice to have a look at a dead unit to find out which components have failed and whether it can be repaired.

[langers2k]

There are two repair procedures that I'm aware of, one is to replace the mosfet completely, the other is to remap the function of the damaged channel to a spare channel and switch a wire over in the plug. From what I understand, there is only one spare channel and it might not be viable depending on the original damage.

 

Easiest way to tell is from a VCDS autoscan, it'll be listed under Address 09: Cent. Elect. (J519).

 

Otherwise you could look at the module, it lives above the pedals in the drivers footwell. You'll probably need to remove trim to get at it but with a borescope you might get away with it. Should have a lovely big sticker on it like this:

[paddypaws]

If its just taking out a channel, and its fed by a Mosfet the I'd replace the Mosfet that doesn't doesn't sound too bad at all. I'm also wondering if an isolating diode in series with the HIDs +ve would be a good mod to protect the Mosfet. (I take it the headlights are switched positive not a switched negative circuit).

Edited 28 July, 2015 by paddypaws