alfiejts
Registered User
In case anyone else is thinking of doing it, I've just retrofitted a pair of OEM Xenon porjector headlights into my non-Xenon A3. Managed the whole jobbie for just about £100 all in.
Results are absolutely excellent. I've been using an H7 HID aftermarket conversion kit in my ordinary reflector headlights up until now, but the beam patern wasn't wonderful.
Got the headlights off eBay for just £51 - but that didn't include ballasts or bulbs (well it came with one ignitor but that was no use to me - anyone need a spare OEM Xenon igniter?).
So I bought a pair of pukka Osram D2S HID bulbs for £28 (eBay again) and I bought a connector cable to connect the OEM D2S bulb to my existing "aftermarket" HID Xenon ballasts.
The aftermarket ballasts work OK without needing to change "VAG.COM" settings from Halogen to Xenon, so that's one less thing to worry about.
Removed the bumper and headlights on Sunday and swapped them over.
Only real issue was the headlight levelling motor. The "automatic" levelling motor in the HID headlight is different to the 3-stage manual motor in the halogen headlight.
You need to swap over the motors inside the headlight units.
Two issues follow there -
Firstly the wiring plug for the motor is different (3 pin vs 4 pin). So you need to cut the connectors off from your old headlights as well and swap the 3 pin plug over into the new headlight too, connecting it up to the right wires. Even that's a pain, because the same colour wires connect to different pins in the different headlights - so you need to connect the 3 pin wires back to the same pin connections on the main headligt wiring loom plug, regardless of the wire colour.
Next, you can't just fasten the manual adjustment motor into the Xenon headlight in the same way as it comes out of the Halogen headlight because it fouls the deeper projector beam assembly. By cutting off some unnecessary lugs on the plastic motor mount, I could turn the motors through 90 degrees, mount them vertically and avoid the conflict.
So, all that done, I now have proper Xenon HID headlights and the beam pattern is just great.
Before some of you kick off, yes I know there are two potential issues:
1) I don't have the standard "auto levelling" system - but I take great care to monitor my car loading and adjust the beam level manually to compensate - so I don't see that as a real issue.
2) I don't have headlight washers - but I wash my car every week and if I'm on a journey and they get dirty, I already wipe my headlights when I stop so that I can see properly - so they're probably even more clean than they would be with headlight washers - so again, I see no issue.
OEM Xenons for £100 -
Results are absolutely excellent. I've been using an H7 HID aftermarket conversion kit in my ordinary reflector headlights up until now, but the beam patern wasn't wonderful.
Got the headlights off eBay for just £51 - but that didn't include ballasts or bulbs (well it came with one ignitor but that was no use to me - anyone need a spare OEM Xenon igniter?).
So I bought a pair of pukka Osram D2S HID bulbs for £28 (eBay again) and I bought a connector cable to connect the OEM D2S bulb to my existing "aftermarket" HID Xenon ballasts.
The aftermarket ballasts work OK without needing to change "VAG.COM" settings from Halogen to Xenon, so that's one less thing to worry about.
Removed the bumper and headlights on Sunday and swapped them over.
Only real issue was the headlight levelling motor. The "automatic" levelling motor in the HID headlight is different to the 3-stage manual motor in the halogen headlight.
You need to swap over the motors inside the headlight units.
Two issues follow there -
Firstly the wiring plug for the motor is different (3 pin vs 4 pin). So you need to cut the connectors off from your old headlights as well and swap the 3 pin plug over into the new headlight too, connecting it up to the right wires. Even that's a pain, because the same colour wires connect to different pins in the different headlights - so you need to connect the 3 pin wires back to the same pin connections on the main headligt wiring loom plug, regardless of the wire colour.
Next, you can't just fasten the manual adjustment motor into the Xenon headlight in the same way as it comes out of the Halogen headlight because it fouls the deeper projector beam assembly. By cutting off some unnecessary lugs on the plastic motor mount, I could turn the motors through 90 degrees, mount them vertically and avoid the conflict.
So, all that done, I now have proper Xenon HID headlights and the beam pattern is just great.
Before some of you kick off, yes I know there are two potential issues:
1) I don't have the standard "auto levelling" system - but I take great care to monitor my car loading and adjust the beam level manually to compensate - so I don't see that as a real issue.
2) I don't have headlight washers - but I wash my car every week and if I'm on a journey and they get dirty, I already wipe my headlights when I stop so that I can see properly - so they're probably even more clean than they would be with headlight washers - so again, I see no issue.
OEM Xenons for £100 -