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I have just got round to putting my photo's in order, for a comprehensive "how to" on replacing the GTI sidelight/main beam bulbs.

Please take a look in the DIY Guide forum for my thread (http://tinyurl.com/p53sg) (56k beware - 33 pictures).

I hope this will be of some use to GTi owners, and encourage you to attempt this yourself to save labour costs. No offense to the author, but I found the guide on tyresmoke was not very helpful when it came to the nitty gritty of removing the headlight unit and accessing the bulb.

For reference, it took me 1 1/2 hours including taking the pictures, although this wasn't the first time I had removed the bumper.

Marc.

very good work - those pics are really clear - i'm willing to give this a bash at some point. Thanks for the help

just to clarify - which bulbs do you have in at the end? and where did you buy them from - it's the look i am after, so that they match the xenons

Somebody that was thinking about making VW a lot of money

I'll be getting them to put some LED ones in for me when it goes in for it's service this month. (I'll be buying them obviously)

ModifiedMadness wrote:I'll be getting them to put some LED ones in for me when it goes in for it's service this month. (I'll be buying them obviously)

I'm going to be finding someone to do this for me too, some smart LEDs that match the xenon lights would be a nice touch!

Fantastic DIY guide Marc, I'm just not confident enough to go cocking about removing stuff for fear of screwing the whole thing up haha!

Have to agree with Alun though, whose bright idea was it at VW to forget to see if, with the GTi's 1.6-litre engine installed, it was possible to change the sidelight (and full-beam!) bulbs without having to go to the extremes of removing the front bumper!! Muppets

Luke'sGti wrote:just to clarify - which bulbs do you have in at the end? and where did you buy them from - it's the look i am after, so that they match the xenons

the bulbs are metal cased LED's, as seen in this pic:



They were purchased from http://www.ultraleds.co.uk

The reason I went for the above bulbs, is that I have had various LED sidelights in various cars before and they have all failed within a short time span. This is due to the LED and housing being made of plastic, which melts or distorts due to the heat generated from other bulbs close by. Ultra LED's even have a warning against most of the sidelight LED's in their range to this effect:

"Please note because the Leds are plastic they melt and fail (flicker) if placed to close to the Main headlight bulb (less than 3 inches away) - I will not exchange any bulb that has failed due to heat damage"

Therefore I chose the only ones available that were metal, so more heat resistant. With the hassle of changing them, the last thing I want/need is for them to fail within a few weeks (I will report back should they fail).

Unfortunately, even though I only purchased these on 25.07.06, the bulbs are no longer listed on the ultraled site for some reason. They were more expensive than the plastic LED sidelights at £17.98 for the pair incl. delivery, but that is reflected in their casing quality. If you want the exact same bulb, I would e-mail ultra leds and ask if the product is still available. Their product number to quote was U501WHP2.

To be honest they are more white in colour than the xenons. I believe the xenons are 4500k in colour, whereas these are I guess nearer to 5500-6000k in colour. But they look a damn site better against the xenons than any non LED sidelight bulb.

Si_GTi wrote:Fantastic DIY guide Marc, I'm just not confident enough to go cocking about removing stuff for fear of screwing the whole thing up haha!

Thanks, it should be great once I have done the write up, at the moment it is just the bare bones pictures, but still pretty obvious and straightforward to follow from those alone.

I am no mechanic, but if you are methodical and take your time it is a pretty straighforward job with the right tools available. It was the third time in nearly as many weeks that I had removed the bumper, the first time was to look at the headlight washers, 2nd time was my first attempt to change the bulbs, but the LED's sidelights I purchased were too wide for the apeture ! Your biggest friend by far doing it is the stubby No. 2 pozidrive !

To be honest, fitting a BMC correctly sounds more difficult to me than changing the sidelights.

Si_GTi wrote:I'm going to be finding someone to do this for me

As said previously, I would be happy to change the sidelights for anyone (for a very small labour fee), at the owners risk !

Obviously it is easier for anyone local to me, but my time is limited with a family.

I had to do a similar job when "de-tangoing" the headlights on my old Fiesta, this looks a lot more complex. May give it a bash in the future

Thats a great writeup, ill definately be doing this

he put that disclaimer up after me and another guy bought the ultra bright white leds to make the rings on our mk4s angel eyes white rather than yellow, the projector melted them

I have now added the write up to the how to.

Hopefully it is easy to understand and follow, and will hopefully be very useful to those of you who attempt it.

Thats a fantastic write up mate.
Saved to my favorites, and hoping I never need to use it