Need some help with S3 Depo facelift lights and fitting Xenons into them

[Bad Sir Culation]

The car currently has a set of Depos on it, and the back covers are missing. The wiring has been well and truly butchered and the bulbs don't lock into the light cups or anything.

I have bought a replacement set on eBay from another S3. Unfortunately it looks like he has had halogen bulbs in them. The lights take a H1 bulb so I will try and get a set of these in Xenon flavour.

Are both dipped and main beam supposed to be Xenon on an S3?

It looks as though the wiring has been chopped to add facelift headlight connector plugs as my car has these. If I plug them into the Depo lights, they come on fine and work as they should. Unfortunately I have also got an aftermarket HID kit fitted and some on here have speculated that this may be because the original ballasts packed in.

I have seen items on eBay that claim to be replacement ballasts for the OEM items.

How can I find out if the car still has the OEM ballasts? Where would they be? And if I have them (or if I replace them), would I be able to swap out the halogen bulbs inside the new lights for Xenon items and have everything work fine with just the main headlight plug connected? The current setup has a ballast with wires going directly to the Xenon bulb in addition to the other plug (which again, is butchered).

I think my Mrs would rather run halogens on the car with lights that aren't messed up than keep the current setup!

Couple of pics of the lights:



The aftermarket ballast currently installed:




Seems to draw power from this butchered headlight plug:




Ballast going directly to dipped beam bulb:

 

[JimS3]

Just dipped is xenon on the s3. If the lamps are Depo, they are likely halogen units, AFAIK depo didn't make xenon replacements.

If the replacement headlights you have bought have a H1 dipped bulb I suspect they are not really S3 lamps and are again halogens.

The xenon units run d2s bulbs and have a different build holder inside.

The reflector silvering started to come off on my xenons. Rather than spend a small fortune on replacement units I bought a set of Depo halogens, and fitted an H1 55w HID kit to new halogen units. Cost about £130 for everything, looks OEM and the beam cut off is excellent.

 

[Bad Sir Culation]

Thanks Jim. They are likely intended for A3 halogen I guess. Bit gutted, but not the end of the world.

It currently has H7 main beam and H1 dipped fitted. I'll get some Xenon H1 bulbs. What I need to know is whether the OEM ballasts would need reconnecting/replacing and where they are on pre-facelift.

 

[Gops]

Mate.. Don't be gutted. They look fine.. All you need to do is buy a HID kit from em tuning (Trups) and pop it in those headlamps! I've done that and it's perfectly fine! The connector is the same n everything!

 

[chaz20vt]

Got a link to what you used gops?

 

[JimS3]

Thanks Jim. They are likely intended for A3 halogen I guess. Bit gutted, but not the end of the world.

It currently has H7 main beam and H1 dipped fitted. I'll get some Xenon H1 bulbs. What I need to know is whether the OEM ballasts would need reconnecting/replacing and where they are on pre-facelift.

Forget OEM ballasts, they are unlikely to still be in your engine bay. If you get an after market HID kit it will come with bulbs, ballasts, wiring etc. Everything you need to convert your halogen lamps to 'xenon'.



I bought mine from here: 55W Xenon Headlight HID Upgrade Kit for H1 bulbs
If you use discount code 'Toyota pro' you get £20 off!

There are of course many other places that also do HID kits, but I have only ever had experience with these.

OEM Xenons are about 4300K colour temperature. I went for 5000K kit as it is pretty much pure white. The higher the Kelvin number the more blue / purple and the less light it will actually give out (More of it is outside the visable spectrum).

 

[Bad Sir Culation]

I actually already have one Jim, but what I don't want is holes drilled into the backs of the lamp covers for HID kit wires

 

[JimS3]

I actually already have one Jim, but what I don't want is holes drilled into the backs of the lamp covers for HID kit wires

Bear in mind OEM xenons have the wires coming out the back of the headlights anyway for the OEM ballasts.

Here's a couple of pics of mine installed with a grommet in the headlight back cover:





Ballast tie wrapped up in top corner of picture above. Don't think it looks too bad TBH. Probably the cleanest tidiest part of my engine bay

 

[Bad Sir Culation]

Ok so it looks like that's what I'll have to do then. I just hoped maybe there was a way to do it without that and just use the standard headlight connector as a one plug does all type solution.

So on the S3 OEM Xenons, it also uses the standard plug as well as an additional bit of wiring to the HID bulbs? I didn't actually know that.

BTW, where do you use for power to the ballasts?

 

[JimS3]

Ok so it looks like that's what I'll have to do then. I just hoped maybe there was a way to do it without that and just use the standard headlight connector as a one plug does all type solution.

So on the S3 OEM Xenons, it also uses the standard plug as well as an additional bit of wiring to the HID bulbs? I didn't actually know that.

BTW, where do you use for power to the ballasts?

You retain the original headlight wiring and connector. Inside the headlight you then take the two live and ground spade connectors that usually connect to the H1 bulb. These then connect to the feed wires to the ballasts (The red and black you see coming out of the headlight on the left side of the grommet.

The blue and red wired on the right of the grommet are the high voltage feed back from the ballast to the HID bulb inside the headlight.

This wiring arrangement is actually exactly the same as OEM, with the wires leaving then re-entering the headlight, its just the OEM lights have all 4 wires in one piece of sleeving and it looks 'slightly' neater.

I have a set of OEM xenon lights complete with ballasts in my garage. I'm happy to take a picture of them if you want to compare how it all looks?

 

[Bad Sir Culation]

Yeah that would be great. Thanks for the help so far, I really do appreciate it.

 

[JimS3]

Yeah that would be great. Thanks for the help so far, I really do appreciate it.

Will do that later for you when I get home from work

 

[JimS3]

So here's a pic of an OEM xenon, wires coming out to ballast just like an aftermarket setup

 

[Bad Sir Culation]

Ah I see. Strange setup, lol. I take it then that you still run the normal 4 pin connector for the sidelights etc. in addition to this extra wiring for the Xenons?

I think I'll have a go at sorting my lights later or tomorrow, time allowing

 

[JimS3]

Ah I see. Strange setup, lol. I take it then that you still run the normal 4 pin connector for the sidelights etc. in addition to this extra wiring for the Xenons?

I think I'll have a go at sorting my lights later or tomorrow, time allowing

Yes, because the 4 pin connector to the headlight consist of:

A pin for supply to side light, supply to main beam, supply to dipped beam (Either H1 in halogen, or feed to ballast in Xenon / HID) and the fourth pin is a common ground.

So basically the wire from one pin in the OEM connector goes into the headlight... Back out the headlight to ballast... Back from ballast into the headlight again to the Xenon bulb.

I suppose the pin on the headlight connector that feeds the ballast does not need to enter the headlight first, and could just split off from the loom and go straight there. But Audi chose not to do this.

Its slightly cranky, and would be unnecessary if the ballast fitted within the headlight itself...but it doesn't!

 

[Gops]

Got a link to what you used gops?

Which ones mate, HID's or headlamps?

 

[chaz20vt]

Both would be good mate