Londoncolour Hid Kits

[maverick54]

Been reading an old thread from 2013 where everyone appears to recommend the Londoncolour HID Kits option 4300.

 

After a really bad night of driving along unlit  roads with the oncoming lights in my face, the road markings would often appear to disappear at times and it was quite scary. So decided I need brighter lights.

 

Are the above kits still the ones to go for or has technology moved on since the 2013 thread was started? My car is a 2011 FL.

 

Never done an Hid conversion so any advice greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks guys.

 

[Fr0d]

Someone will soon come along and tell you to not to even think about a hid kit on a fl. 

 

Or I think that's the general consensus, anyway.

[Nathanio]

Apparently the BCM in the FL is prone to being blown by HIDS and then causing funky behaviour. Can be expensive to fix to get the right module.

PreFL was more tolerant of this.

Some people have had success but a lot haven't. I'd be wary.

Some have had them fitted with a relay so to try and protect the BCM by it only seeing the relay voltage and not the HID startup spike

[maverick54]

Thanks for the replies. That's not good to hear. Last thing I want to do is risk damaging any parts and causing any problems. If Xenons cant be fitted for this reason is there any other type of bulbs that can safely be fitted that will light up the road better than the standard ones?

 

Its not a problem in built up areas with street lighting but on those unlit roads its bordering on dangerous as I'm sure many of you have found out before me. Felt like I was driving with someone shining a torch through the windscreen for me last night

[maverick54]

Oh just been reading the other thread on bulb upgrades. so any questions I had on those have been answered in that thread.

Thanks

[Gizmo]

I have a set of these to fit into a TT today, they claim:

 

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Not sure if they will prevent the issues on a F/L, but it does appear that the ballasts have moved on a bit now.

[Metblackrat]

Having had a London Colour kit fitted for 4 years, I've had no issues.

Some claim the kits blow BCM. Personally I look at it and think forums highlight problems and the ones that are happy never post about it.

The ones where the BCM had blown, there is no guarantee that they were fitted or coded correctly and there was nothing else that caused the failure.

Standby for the scaremongers.

[CFB]

Had the Londoncolours fitted to our FL for 3 years and no issues.

I seem to remember they need coding in with VCDS before fitting to avoid canbus errors

[silver1011]

I can't comment on any negative affects on the BCM, other than there have been several reports of issues on here on cars from the 2010-2011 era.

 

What I can confirm is that the H7 4300K kits from Londoncolour are very good quality.

 

I've had mine in now for over 3 years and have covered over 100,000 miles with no issues what-so-ever.

[mikey vrs]

Oh just been reading the other thread on bulb upgrades. so any questions I had on those have been answered in that thread.

Thanks

I had the london colour kit in my pre facelift octavia & it was very good,i have just fitted a set of Philips extreme 130% uprated bulbs to my volvo as its been mentioned on the volvo forum that h.i.d kits have caused issues with some members cars so im not prepared to take the chance & the uprated bulbs are very good,not as goos as the h.i.d kit but not far off. 

[maverick54]

Thanks guys, I think the 130% bulbs are the way for me to go on this one. The price really is a sting in the tail. Wouldn't be so bad if they lasted a couple of years but reports of 6 months are not good. Still no other sensible option really so I'll give them a try.

[maverick54]

Makes great sense Mike. Thanks its new bulbs for me.

[GrahamWade]

I bought the Halfords +130% bulbs for my Octavia 2 weeks ago. They currently have a but one get one free offer so bought 2. Much brighter than standard, easy to fit, can't comment on how they will last .

[booke23]

As mentioned, you could guarantee the BCM won't get damaged by using a relay harness kit. I have done this in my other car (non VAG) with no issues. Relay kits specifically for this are readily available and easy to fit. 

 

However my other car doesn't have headlight bulb monitoring like the Octavia so no problems with blown bulb warnings. Not sure how you would deal with this in a an Octavia....even if you coded it for HID, it may still throw a blown bulb warning as the relay draws hardly any current? Or maybe the HID coding removes the bulb warning completely, I'm not sure.