A4 B6/B7 LED dipped beam conversion - installation and review (H7)

dr S
not done anything yet, ordered the die cast boxes, but been away a lot over crimble so not had much time to do anything
I might throw them in just to see if there is any interference and check the beam pattern, then work on modifying the covers if its all good
 
jumped on the bandwagon , hope these work , 2003 audi sport bfb , I have nightbreakers at the moment , 1 year old and actually check my headlight switch sometimes in the dark to make sure they are on lol
 
In comparison here's my OEM Xenon lights if anyone is interested;

I need to clear up the headlights as they are cloudy and I think alignment is off but the colour is accurate :)

 
  • Like
Reactions: DrStrange
Just as an update. my car failed MOT tonight with the LED bulbs in.. tester failed it saying they were HID's.. no talking to him!! so halogens back in for retest..
 
My mate who's a traffic officer said the other day that it's going to be made an offence to have after market hid/led's fitted unless you have head lamp washers fitted also?
 
  • Like
Reactions: technics100
mine arrived on monday and its not stopped f**ing raining long enough to get the headlights off lol .
 
  • Like
Reactions: Gazwould
technics100 said:
Just as an update. my car failed MOT tonight with the LED bulbs in.. tester failed it saying they were HID's.. no talking to him!! so halogens back in for retest..
Click to expand...

Now that's interesting as I've had HID's in mine for 6yrs now (same set)and never failed a mot. I did ask the tester when I first had them in if it would fail because of HID's and he said only if they weren't aligned properly same as any headlight.
 
Hi all, just reading this with great interest,I'm looking to replace my 35w 6000k hids as the output is so poor, drove the car at night over Christmas and was like driving with no lights on !!, I was gonna go and try a 55w hid kit but now I've seen this led conversion I'm gonna give this a go, they look good, also I noticed one of my rear brake lights out over Christmas but no bulb out warning on my dis, also no decoders on my hids, my car is a july 2004 A4 1.9 TDI quattro
 
I'm based in Northern Ireland so our MOT centres are government run. Although got a re-test tonight and took a bulb with me, fella said it shouldn't of failed!!! so passed tonight with halogen bulbs installed..

PS.. I will be selling my 3 week old bulbs and error cancellers for £20 if anyone is interested
 
Ben85 said:
My mate who's a traffic officer said the other day that it's going to be made an offence to have after market hid/led's fitted unless you have head lamp washers fitted also?
Click to expand...

Going to to be made? It's been an offence for 6 years in Northern Ireland and it's not an offence in England Scotland and Wales

Northern Ireland guidelines states "A car with HID lights MUST have headlight washers and self levelling."

VOSA (for E,S&W) states "A car with HID lights MAY also have headlight washers and self levelling which must be checked and in working order if fitted"

Basically, if you're in Ireland and want HID's you're screwed, unless you want to retrofit headlight washers which is a PITA

Anywhere else and you're fine
 
ok they are in , now need to wait till it gets dark :racer: to set them and test them out .
 
  • Like
Reactions: DrStrange
Good idea. Again, they do run hot which i admit but still happy with lighting output. Will keep peeps informed if anything changes
 
Never had a problem and do you have the lenses in your headlight my mot man is sweet and flys past with my hids in with out the washer jets

Sent from my GT-I9195I using Tapatalk
 
well , got them set up ok , whiter than joey essex teeth :grin: , brighter than the nightbreakers that are now in the main beam , fitted with a little push into the fitting , wired up the first time wrong , red is not positive , thank fluck I checked before screwing them in :flushed: lol went for a drive and lighting up the road better , by the way am an old cooont "46" with glasses lol
 
  • Like
Reactions: Andyb5tdi
jimmcgee said:
well , got them set up ok , whiter than joey essex teeth :grin: , brighter than the nightbreakers that are now in the main beam , fitted with a little push into the fitting , wired up the first time wrong , red is not positive , thank fluck I checked before screwing them in :flushed: lol went for a drive and lighting up the road better , by the way am an old cooont "46" with glasses lol
Click to expand...

Ah great to hear Jim! Ive enjoyed mine so far and with LED's Fogs to match they look sweet at night!
 
  • Like
Reactions: jimmcgee
technics100 said:
I'm based in Northern Ireland so our MOT centres are government run. Although got a re-test tonight and took a bulb with me, fella said it shouldn't of failed!!! so passed tonight with halogen bulbs installed..

PS.. I will be selling my 3 week old bulbs and error cancellers for £20 if anyone is interested
Click to expand...

Sorry to hear technics! A real pain in the A*SE ! Good thinking on the halogens. Just pop the LED's back in if you're happy with them.

One thing I wont do is..old fried egg halogen yellow!
 
found a slight issue lol , their is no heat from the bulbs , so in this fine scottish weather :cold: my head light glass is freezing over :racer:.

jim
 
jimmcgee said:
found a slight issue lol , their is no heat from the bulbs , so in this fine scottish weather :cold: my head light glass is freezing over :racer:.

jim
Click to expand...

Haha, not much better down south.

Ok, so to all members..please please invest in a cheap as chips cover for your car (ebay).

Every morning I go to my car (in subzero temps) remove the cover and literally drive off. No ice..ever! Gives me piece of mind for the paintwork too!
 
  • Like
Reactions: jimmcgee
DrStrange said:
Sorry to hear technics! A real pain in the A*SE ! Good thinking on the halogens. Just pop the LED's back in if you're happy with them.

One thing I wont do is..old fried egg halogen yellow!
Click to expand...

yeah, swapped them over and took it back the next night.. I complained to the DVLA and they refunded me the £18.50 re-test fee.. not too bad.. LED's back in now... I bought a set of Philips xtreme whites but they were awful looking.. pure yellow.. back to nice white now..
 
technics100 said:
yeah, swapped them over and took it back the next night.. I complained to the DVLA and they refunded me the £18.50 re-test fee.. not too bad.. LED's back in now... I bought a set of Philips xtreme whites but they were awful looking.. pure yellow.. back to nice white now..
Click to expand...

Yes! Glad you got the dosh back too.

Nice one :)
 
Thanks for the write up very helpful and now cost me 30 quid haha!

Bought these ones as the original link was out of stock and didn't like the auction format of there new listing-

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/222164425835

Ordered Sunday arrived today (Tuesday)

As expected there setting off dipped beam out warnings until I get the resistors fitted. In my old set of HID converted headlights I cut out the bottom of the headlight and fitted the HID ballast inside to an aluminum plate. I think I'll do the same to my current headlights and mount the resistor to a thicker aluminum plate to act as a heatsink. Maybe use some CPU conductive paste to ensure a good contact.





Painted the aluminum black but the above pic shows it better.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DrStrange
You're welcome.

Thanks for the re posting of the link. They are the exact same ones and probably branded ever so slightly different.

Super neat install, i like that!

I think if they cause me issues in the future I will look wrap the balasts and resistors in high temp 'kapton tape'

:)
 
The thought of wrapping the resistors with something did pass through my head but then thought it's still a lot of heat in there. So opening up the space and mounting to alluminium should allow the heat to escape somewhere.

Now had the chance to upload some pics too....





 
  • Like
Reactions: DrStrange
audi upgrades
Great work.

Your pics show up well against the dark back drop of a country road.

Defo go for LED Fogs too. I love mine and SO much better than OEM halogens.
 
Nice work.
Would still say that my retrofitted 3" bixenons have a better output..

LED aren't the holy grail in lighting, just another lighting type.
The new Seat LED headlights were not performing as well as the Skoda xenons in a recent test (German)
 
Retrofitlab got the Optima bi-led and Q5 replica bi-led and compared them tonxenons.. NOT very good.
And those are projectors made for led
 
I'm happy with my fogs as I barely use them, but have yellow tint on them for looks which I feel LED would ruin.

Wahlstrom, did you retro fit bike units into them? Have you got any pics? I don't doubt LED isn't the greatest, it's certainly my best option at the moment though. I have a spare set of headlights to have a play with in the future thought with better options.

Problem with any lighting mods is the legality side of things. LED might get away with more for longer as they fire up instantly.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DrStrange
I haven't done any LED retrofit..
Only xenon..

Led lights are great, when the car is built with it.
Just look at the new MB or Audi..
But putting a led bulb into a projector which is made for halogen or xenon isn't going to be great..
 
Yesterday I installed some leds to the fog lights.. must say I like it a lot..
The reason is I got the ch/LHD function, and I've retrofitted an eBay bought relay so the fogs also functions as DRL..
With the auto function it turns on and off by it self..
I've had the relay for a while, but only until last week I asked the seller from eBay if the relay could handle leds, and he said it could..
So now I got leds in the fog lights.
I'm also thinking about getting some powerful leds for the extra high beam H7.
Then I'll will have the power of both
The high beam is already very powerful with some Xtreme vision H7 installed...
 
Those projector units look nice, maybe a future upgrade.

Surely those LED's will be too big to fit within the headlight.

I'm not a fan for running fog lights all the time, I keep them for poor visibility.
 
My fogs only run as DRL or if I turn them on manually..
When low beam is on, fogs are off..

This video was shot some years ago..

It shows DRL > low beam > fogs manually > DRL


But halogens.. The leds aren't dimmable

Why would they be too big?
There's a lot of room inside the housing..
 
Look at the enormous amount of space beside the xenon projector..
Surely they WILL fit
1d26c7877432607e8e7361be75f8ac12.jpg
 
Last edited:
Ohh my bad, my mere halogen headlights have 2 access covers on the back and there's not much space behind either of the bulb mounting positions.

Sounds good then if the halogens in the fogs are dimmed down as DRL's
 
Good info guys.

Definitely agree LED's arent the best lighting output. Its all down to preference.

Of course OEM type bi-xenons are going to be good! To be honest, I just wanted something nice and cheap that I can install and be all smug about.

Fingers crossed mine will last.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Paul_TDi
I am thinking to put led bulbs for my low beams in my 2002 a4 avant? What bulbs would you recommend ?

DrStrange said:
Hi All,

Just wanted to share my experience as I could be the first person to do this. (trawling the web I havent found any reviews on our cars up until now)

To me, lighting is very important, both internal and external. Lets face it, our cars are 10+ years old so updating the lights are always a GREAT mod for keeping the car 'current'.

Ive been through plenty of sets of cheap £20 6000k HID's and whilst i was happy with the lighting output was getting seriously p*ssed off with the bulbs and ballasts always failing every 3 months. Usually yes..you get what you pay for.

What you need

So for a year or so I have been eyeing up the development in LED headlight conversions and seeing if its practical to convert my B6 cab too. Finally decided to give it a go.

As some of us know, simply changing the incandescent H7 bulb to an LED one is a BAD idea! The lighting power is shockingly bad and it may also throw 'bulb out' errors on your car's DIS.

So, i did my homework to find out how to overcome the 2 issues above.

Firstly - You will need an LED conversion kit, not simply the LED replacement bulbs. This consists of and LED bulb, some sort of cooling mechanism and lump in the middle..being the ballast. Very similar to the HID Xenon kit but LED instead. I recommend, buying a kit with at least 3200 Lumens per bulb. This basically means the lighting output of LED technology. If the manufacturer/company you purchased it from are telling the truth, 3200 lumens are good power!

Secondly - Some LED conversion kits claim to be canbus compatible thus not showing an error of a bulb out on the car's display. The reason this actually happens is LED lighting is generally lower power draw than incandescen bulbs so you can get better lighting output with less draw! At the expense of you DIS thinking that your car has a dead or faulty bulb. So, dont take this chance and simply purchase a H7 load resistor to essentially 'fool' the cars canbus system into working perfectly.

What I Purchased

Whats important is to get the dimensions of your LED conversion kit and complete light housing correct. Some LED conversion kits are so tall and long, they simply dont fit inside the light housing or you would need to drill a hole in the lid or remove the lid completely.

So, I decided to purchase a kit which was as short as possilbe which had (supposedly new technology) metal ribbons for heat dissipation as opposed to a chunky colling fan at the bottom. This would also likely not fit as well as the 2 metal 'pins' that hold the bulb in place. Also, the good thing about metal ribbons, is you can bend them round to fit within our cars headlight housing.

LEDS;
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/60W-6400L...617339?hash=item236de5933b:g:DJMAAOSwHoFXtVHJ

Error Cancellors;
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2x-H7-50W...688982?hash=item3d29f15d56:g:ePMAAOSwnbZYFNKR

Marrying it all up, I switched on the ignition, turned on the lights and was chuffed to see the results. Full working LED H7 Headlights no errors.

Review

Ive had the set now for over a month with no issues. Have stress tested them in the sense that ive switched them on and off with quick succession many times and seem to be rock solid. The 'boot up' time is great. They come on immedaitely and just 'appear' when your turn that switch.

LED lights are angular so there is a sharp cut off line which I quite like. You can of course point them more down using your level system. Personal preference.

Negatives

1 - As the small light diodes are small and directional, when you look at your headlight when with the lights on, you will be able to see a H pattern as the LED's are both sides of the plastic housing the small lights are glued to. This is not so bad but just not a full beam pattern spread across the road. However in practise, you can notice this when you are looking 20metres in the distance sat behind your steering wheel.

2 - The lighting output is very good but dont expect it to be in line with new Mercedes and Audi OLED lighting which is stupildy bright. However, for around £30 all in, you cant go wrong.

I hope this starts a trend and has been useful.

Dan.

Pics and Vid below.

View attachment 110522 View attachment 110523 View attachment 110524 View attachment 110525

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fk860bfakut8kml/B6 Cab LED H7's Video.MOV?dl=0

(Vid isnt very good as it was taken from my sh*t iphone)
Click to expand...
Jonni3 said:
I'm liking this Dan, have been looking at this kit for the cab as the lighting isn't bad but isn't great.

Liked it, so I just ordered it.
Click to expand...
 
I want to put led bulbs for low beam in my 2002 avant ????? What bulbs should I buy that won't blow codes ?????????

Audi-fiend said:
It does state on the error cancel resistor packet that they get hot!!!!

Regarding the lack of bulb warning on DIS. I'm not that bothered by it. I did think it weird. Can it be switched off with VCDS?

Now tested my bulbs in the dark. Unfotunately light output seems no better than old H7's. I may try twisting bulbs through 90' to see if that helps.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

L
A4 Dipped beam bulb replacement.
Replies
2
Views
2K
LaSarthe&Back
L
A
Audi A4 B6 -> B7 conversion?
Replies
5
Views
9K
J7USS
J7USS
Audi.
A4 conversion b6 to b7 help
Replies
12
Views
35K
Agris
Agris
H
a4 convertible b6 to b7 conversion
Replies
1
Views
979
DrStrange
DrStrange
Marc1
A4 B6 TDI to B7 RS4 Conversion
Replies
55
Views
16K
docurley
docurley
Top
Back