Hi,

I am looking at replacing the sidelight bulbs with led ones, but noticed the same bulb is also used for the main beam. Has anyone else done this, and if so what were the results?

On previous cars I have done this on, the sidelight was a seperate 501 type fitting bulb, so didn't affect the main beam.

I am eventually looking at fitting HID bulbs for the dipped beam if I can find a supplier for replacement bulb covers - it's a leased company car so I need to be able to replace them before the car goes back as you normally need to drill the covers to fit HID's.

Thanks for any advice

Stoo

You can't replace the H15 for LED without loosing the mainbeam brightness - it will still work but won't be bright enough.

Another option you have is to replace the fog light bulbs with LED and set them as dual function DRL / fogs.

You could then set the H15 DRL brightness to as low as you can, or possibly off (this may generate a bulb failure, just try it first - lowering the brightness to 24% won't generate an error light. Equivilant of a 3.6w bulb)

If you really want to you can disable the DRL function of the H15 completely with a resistor.

Unless anyone has any other options?

On a second note, if you don't have projector headlights the light from a HID bulb can be a bit uncontrolled. Maybe a 50w led bulb with intergrated cooling, not many people have tried them but from what I've read they seem to get ok results

Edited 25 October, 201411 yr by xpower

Thanks for the reply.

I can turn the DRL off from the car settings, so I might do that for the time being as they look like you've got old fashioned torch bulbs fitted!

The LED with fan may be an option for the dipped lights, but I see some suppliers are selling H7R HID bulbs for use with non projector headlights.

I might invest in a VCDS cable and some software, as this looks giving a whole lot of possibilities when it comes to settings!

Stoo

If you turn the DRL off in the menu then when you set your fogs as DRL they won't come on.

The only option you have this way is to set the DRL to off in the menu and then set the fogs to 100% active all the time (brightness can be chosen)

Choices choices :-)

So there's really no way that the dipped beam bulb can be changed, because if I change it to an led one, the main beam won't be bright enough.

Can the sidelight be turned off through using VCDS, I presume it works on a reduced voltage?

You can change the dipped beam as its a different bulb.

Side light can't be turned off without error on the dash. It can be reduced in brightness though to 25% (I believe this is the minimum before error light)