Hello there,

 

my Octavia 62 plate has Xenon headlights, however the main beam is a yellow colour and ideally id like them to match.

 

Also, the side lights don't seem to come on at all.

 

There are little blue bulbs in the side light places, but when I flick the sidelights on onthe dash, nothing comes on.

 

My question is.... Can I change the main beams to a 4300k white?

 

Should I have side lights that work as Skoda man said the side lights are the LED running lights (although when I had my previous non xenon octavia, I had side lights as well as LED runners)

 

Anyone with Xenons on a VRS shed any light (pun intended)

 

Anthony

Short of going to bi-Xenons yuor best bet is probably Osram Nightbreaker+ bulbs in the mains.

Your dealer is correct, if you have DRL's you won't have working sidelights.

Hence why if you take your side lights out on your car you won't get any bulb warnings on the dash.

As for the main beam, your never going to get anything as good as the xenon/HID - although you can search on eBay for xenon type ( the blue lensed ) bulbs. It will be a whiter light than your used to now but still not a match.

I take it you have after market HID's?

These fit in the low beam position, leaving the main beam bulb a halogen.  This is why it looks yellow.  It is not possible to make a halogen bulb look as white in the real world.  Coated halogen bulbs will maybe look more white, but at the expense of less actual illumination on the road.  I have the Osrams in mine, but they look about as white as the Fianancial Times in comparison.

The factory HID set up uses a single HID light source and utilises a shutter to switch the beam direction, they will both appear the same colour, because they are. 

The relatively slow warm up time means having two HID light sources and switching between will give you a discernable pause.  Which is why people don't put in two separate HID's.

 

I had some LED side lights which were a good match.  They failed after a couple of years, not good because they were pretty expensive.

LED's are not compatible with the canbus on your car.  Many people have been disappointed with them not working or them only working briefly. 

Some folk on here have got round this by leaving the original bulb in to fool the blown bulb detector.  Search on MikeHolroyd.

Your car should have the DRL's as sidelights.  They dim to the correct value at night.  I think the sidelights are redundant now.

So the low beam is off when the high beam is on, are you sure?

On a vehicle with factory HID's, then it is definitely either/or.

On the more commonly fitted halogen equipped headlamps, the dip does stay on with main beam.  Sorry for the lack of clarity.

Flashing and use as passing lamps is reputedly not good for HID's.  They don't manage rapid on/offs too well and can reduce the life.

Ive got oem hids nick and they most certainly do not turn off when mean beam is on

Bi xenons are different as they use one source for both dipped and main beam but i didnt think they were even an option on the octy

Ive got oem hids nick and they most certainly do not turn off when mean beam is on

Bi xenons are different as they use one source for both dipped and main beam but i didnt think they were even an option on the octy

Can you confirm that the mains are plasma discharge and not QI?

Well, what was I thinking?  Even with the prompt from Boneman.  I'll leave it all on rather than edit, otherwise it sort of makes the other posts sort of strange.

My head has been full of er stuff, I was confused.  The Octavia has the single shot HID's, so main will give both hi and low together.

Sorry for the confusion and thanks to the people who pointed it up.

Can you confirm that the mains are plasma discharge and not QI?

The mains are halogen. I know the Superb can have bi-xenon but I dont believe the Octavia ever did

I've converted my low beam to Xenon but can the high beams be done as well?

 

Years ago I converted my Scooby to Xenons both low and high and it was excellent but no canbus so relatively simple. Never got flashed, no issues switching to high beam and vv, passed all MOT's for 6yrs.

 

Anyone done this?

It can but it cant be coded so you will always have a bulb warning light on and will 100% fail an mot with that light on.

 

I have thought about it too but there is the lack of coding ability and that the hid kits are usless for lots of on/off due to taking an age to warm up etc

 

Also the canbus friendly kits are known to burn out control modules

Edited 12 February, 201511 yr by ryan-re

The mains are halogen. I know the Superb can have bi-xenon but I dont believe the Octavia ever did

Cheers; that's what I expected.

My Xenons are standard as far as I can tell, they self level dance at the start and have the body coded washers that come out of the bumper.... The dipped beam is the nice white twinkly colour, but the main beam seems to be another bulb and it's more of a yellow tinge.....

I just wanted that one to match the White of the dipped beam... If I make sense?

Dipped beam.

Halogen bulbs will always be more yellow.  Its just physics.

 

I have no idea what bulb base is used in a FL, but LED's are coming out all the time in different fittings, H4, H7 are available, if not cheap. 

is a utube vid of H7's in a Golf, presumably there are no bulb out warnings? 

Don't know what they are like to drive behind, but the vids I have seen of LED's in dedicated reflectors on bikes have been impressive.

 

LED's produce light at around the 6,000K.   HID's in your car are 4,300K and halogen are >3,000K. 

The K stands for Kelvin and is the unit of colour temperature.  Which is why they look different, the lower the colour, the more yellow, the higher the colour the colour tends into the blue or even purple and out of human visual range ie it gets darker to us and we see less.

I have exactly the same setup as you Anthony83. OEM Xenon dipped projector lamps with auto levelling and washers. A kind member on here advised (similar to above) that a HID kit for main beam is pretty pointless due to the warming up and on/off scenario when flashing/signalling etc. Let's face it, it's purely cosmetic. I'm not knocking you as I thought the same when I stood back from my Octy with the main beam (use it to put her in garage as it's a tight squeeze) and noticed the distinct 'yellow' tint.

 

I've asked myself if I'm gaining anything practical out of upgrading the main beam lamps. So far, I'm yet to come up with a reasonable answer. However, these may be worth a look. I'm certainly no expert regarding this and other members can feel free to comment:

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Ring-Xenon-Ultima-H1-Headlight-Bulbs-Pair-448-better-visibility-120-RW1248/331169630951?rt=nc

still look yellow in comparison. If you want nothing but colour then you need a bulb entirely coated in blue. This does however drastically reduce the performance of the bulb rendering it pretty much usless

I can appreciate that. Outside of a purely cosmetic route, which the OP intends, I see no real point of having them changed and I obviously made an error with my recommendation. I did say I'm no expert

Get H1 Osram cool blue intense, you wont go wrong

Edited 19 February, 201511 yr by alberg

Thanks for the replies.... To be honest, I dont want to lose the actual light output and distance as thats what they are there for.... I get good vision with the current set up so I think, unless those LED ones get good distance, I'll just leave them well alone.... It seems like a lot of a ball ache

 

Ant