HIDs installation costs me £710!

[mao]

Just a heads up... Recently installed some HIDs (£49.99) from a very 'reputable' brand which ended up costing me £660 in repairs. The HIDs were in for approximately 5 days when a bulb out warning popped up for the offside front indicator. The indicator light stayed on solid even when out of the car and locked. I removed the bulb to avoid battery drain. 

 

After little investigation on forums and YouTube it appears that a number of people have experienced this issue in Superbs after the installation of HIDs and they have fried the Body Control Module (BCM). 

 

The car went into a Skoda main dealer who stated the HIDs had fired the BCM and that it needed to be replaced at a cost of £660. No idenpendant I called would touch it as I was told the BCM needed to be coded.

 

I've been in contact with the HID company in question who have simply told me that this can 'NOT' happen and take no responsibility. Despite the capitalisation of the 'not' I remain unconvinced.

 

Anyway, you can make your own mind up as to whether the failure of the BCM was a conincidence but thought I would put it out there so people can weigh up the risks of installing HIDs.

[TheRobinK]

Were these replacement HID bulbs installed in a factory bi-xenon headlamp?

[langers2k]

Owch...

 

That could have been fixed for a fraction of the price with either a used BCM or even fixing the fried components in the original BCM. Not that it helps you but it may help others that stumble across this thread.

 

Robin - I expect it was a drop in conversion kit that did the damage rather than a cheap HID bulb with the original ballast.

 

 

[mao]

Yep, it was an aftermarket kit fitted to my halogen housing. I did investigate the fix route but I was told it would need to be coded (no idea if that's correct) and I couldn't find anyone willing to take it on. In retrospect I probably could have spend more time searching for another solution.

[Nathanio]

Unfortunately is common in mk2 Superb and Mk2 FL Octavia. I believe the only safe way is to add in a relay circuit to put the load straight to the battery and only then efectively only putting in a trigger load to the BCM. 

 

I remember reading several threads on here. 

[Vladica]

On 14.11.2019 at 21:01, Nathanio said:

К сожалению, часто встречается в Mk2 Superb и Mk2 FL Octavia. Я полагаю, что единственный безопасный способ - это добавить в релейную цепь, чтобы нагрузка была направлена прямо на батарею, и только тогда эффективно только включить нагрузку триггера на BCM. 

 

Я помню, как читал несколько тем здесь. 

Welcome all.  In the service, they installed a Chinese xenon kit on my Superb mk2.  Service employees say that there can be no problems with BCM.  The survey of the lamps was not turned off and did not make encodings for xenon.  To be sure that BCM will not give a problem, I also want to install xenon through a relay.  Has anyone done this before?

[silver1011]

On 25/02/2020 at 16:16, Vladica said:

Service employees say that there can be no problems with BCM.

 

Your "service employees" are wrong.

 

Replace the cheap Chinese kit with one from a reputable supplier, a non-CANBUS friendly kit, and code the car properly.

 

Even this is not without its risks though, the only safe option is to sell the car and buy one with factory fitted bi-xenon's.

 

I was lucky, I ran my 2011 Superb with a London Colour non-CANBUS HID kit for 8 years and 150,000 miles, but towards the end they started to cause issues so I removed them and went back to the standard halogen bulbs.