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.
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)
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.
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)
