High beam globes for MkV Jetta

[wokwn]

G'day,
My Jetta TDI arrives this month after a 4 month wait.

Would someone be kind enough to have a squiz in their owners manual and tell me what the inner headlamp globes are. I have Philips Crystalvision H3 and H4's in my Magna that is getting traded in for the Jetta and if the Jetta takes the same globes I will swap them out before I trade.

Not fussed about the low beams as I ordered the Bi-Xenon (intend to VAG-Com them to get both lamps on high beam).

I had a search on the forum but couldn't see anything for MkV.

Ta,
Lach

[gtimk5]

Hi! Welcome to the forum, an d its great to hear that you are getting a Jetta!
The mk5 golfs run H7 high beam globes. I reckon that the Jettas do to.
Cheers, Andrew

[wokwn]

Thanks Andrew,
I guess I'll leave em in the Magna then.

The wait has been agonising. When it arrives I need to put 1000k's on ASAP so I can put the DieselPower controller in. I smell a drive to Adelaide coming up.

[geoffp]

Thanks Andrew,
I guess I'll leave em in the Magna then.

The wait has been agonising. When it arrives I need to put 1000k's on ASAP so I can put the DieselPower controller in. I smell a drive to Adelaide coming up.

Hi Wokwn,
What does the DieselPower controller do?

[shogun2]

Vroooooooooommmm

[wokwn]

What does the DieselPower controller do?

Vrooom is about right. Have a read here http://www.dieseltuning.ca/modules/digipd.html

After reading through endless forums I'm actually leaning towards the superchips bluefinn http://www.superchips.co.uk/models.php
as the injector line mods (digi PD) tend to muck up the fuel consumption display on the MFD whereas the engine flash from Bluefinn comes with the flash tool to take it back to stock when the car gets serviced at the dealership.

Anyway, bluefinn specs:
Original kW : 103
Original nm : 320
kW increase : 27
NM gain : 75

Expect to pay $1200-1400 for either DigiPD or Bluefinn

[Lima]

Erm, you do know what bi-xenon means don't you?!

However, yes, the flash to pass high beams on the Jetta would be H7s. That said, I do believe that they do also come on with the xenon high beams as well???

[wokwn]

Yah, bi-xenon has the shutter that flips out of the way for high beam. I think I've spent too much time in the US forums - their factory config with bi-xenons does not light up the inner lights when the xenons go to high beam. Having received the car now it came factory config'd to light up both for high beam.

[dilbert_rocks]

A bit confused...

Yah, bi-xenon has the shutter that flips out of the way for high beam. .... Having received the car now it came factory config'd to light up both for high beam.

1) So you are saying that the outer (larger) headlights have only 1 lamp, but a shutter that changes the beam from low to high beam? Or does the Xenon lamp have a lo-beam arc AND a hi-beam arc?

2) Further, the inner (smaller) lights ALSO come on for high beam but they are H7 (ie: not Xenons and hence not the same colour white)?

3) When you mentioned "... configured to light up both for hi-beam", do you mean both the outer and inner lights, or both lo and hi beams?

My car is permanently indicating "Lamp fault" in the dash cluster (even when lights are not on), and I think it only appeared the first time after I tried hi-beam. As far as I can tell, none of the lights have failed - but haven't checked the brake lights yet. When looking at the front of the vehicle, should I be able to see a difference in the outer lights between when lo and hi beam are selected? The outer lights didn't look any different between lo and hi beam, but the inner ones came on for hi-beam. Does this suggest that the outer light(s) are faulty?

[wokwn]

1) So you are saying that the outer (larger) headlights have only 1 lamp, but a shutter that changes the beam from low to high beam? Or does the Xenon lamp have a lo-beam arc AND a hi-beam arc?

Yep, there is only one xenon globe with one arc path and a shutter that blocks light for low beam. That shutter flips out of the way for high beam. You can actually hear it clicking if the engine is off.

2) Further, the inner (smaller) lights ALSO come on for high beam but they are H7 (ie: not Xenons and hence not the same colour white)?

Yup, they are halogens H7. You could slap some xenon-match halogen lamps in there if you wanted. They don't appear to add that much extra light (pretty much swamped by the xenons on high beam) although they appear to be less focussed. These lamps also are used if you flash your lights with the xenon's off to save igniting the xenons (the manual calls this flash-to-pass).

Be careful what you put in there though, there are stories on other forums of people putting in 100W H7 globes and melting the connectors.

3) When you mentioned "... configured to light up both for hi-beam", do you mean both the outer and inner lights, or both lo and hi beams?

Low beam = xenon only
High beam = xenon and halogen

The standard US config is that the halogen lamps only light when the xenon's are off. By coding your instruments to UK (and it whatever AU cars are coded to) both sets of lights are on with high beam.

My car is permanently indicating "Lamp fault" in the dash cluster (even when lights are not on), and I think it only appeared the first time after I tried hi-beam. As far as I can tell, none of the lights have failed - but haven't checked the brake lights yet. When looking at the front of the vehicle, should I be able to see a difference in the outer lights between when lo and hi beam are selected? The outer lights didn't look any different between lo and hi beam, but the inner ones came on for hi-beam. Does this suggest that the outer light(s) are faulty?

Does your MFD tell you which lamp is broken? When I fiddled with the settings the lamp fail light came on and the MFD had "Check back up light" or something like that (I was fiddling with the reversing light settings).

The outer xenon lights do not look much different between high and low beam except for the light pattern. On low beam there is a very sharp cut off; on high beam there is no cutoff at all. If you park near a wall you might be able to see the difference. The factory halogens have a very yellow colour compared to the xenons so if the wall is light coloured you should be able to tell which light is which. Might also want to try listening for the shutter click with the engine off.

...(even when lights are not on)...

Yep, every time you turn on your ignition the controller does a lamp check (called cold-test or something). I think it basically checks with a small current flow through a lamp filament which indicates that a globe is not blown. The current is not small enough to actually light a lamp. So if a lamp is blown or your coding is wrong you can still throw a fault.

It's the same reason putting LEDs in where normal incandescent lamps were causes fault codes if you don't disable the cold-test for that lamp. LEDs are semiconductors and behave differently to normal lamps in that the don't start conducting until they reach their minimum forward voltage and do not conduct at all when reverse biased unless you exceed a certain voltage.

I guess that means that there is "lamp fail" warning for the LED tails for the Jetta but it's probably not the end of the world anyway as the chance of all the LEDs in a cluster failing simultaneously is pretty slim.

[dilbert_rocks]

This is about the most comprehensive post I've seen on this topic!
Great stuff!

PS: I don't get any text msg about the lamp fault, and presume that it only appears in the MFD (Highline / Full dash display)? And curiously, it no longer appears!

[trippyfoo]

A bit off tangent - I was just reading what was posted earlier by wokwn - I never thought about it, but what would happen if you get one or two malfunctioning Led's in the tail for Jetta's ...
Could you change one or two . ..or would you replace the whole unit. . .
I am taking a very long term view, as I understand Led's to last significantly longer than ordinary bulbs. Just for curiousity really.

[wokwn]

...one or two malfunctioning Led's in the tail for Jetta's ...
Could you change one or two . ..or would you replace the whole unit. . .

You would definitely replace the whole unit. You *could* replace one or two but that would involve prising apart a sealed optical unit, finding bicolour leds with the same forward voltage and brightness and the same optical characteristics (i.e. focus etc), soldering them in without destroying anything else and sealing the unit again.

It is likely to have one or two fail at some point (probably in pairs as they are usually wired in series) but there would be enough LEDs left in the lamp assembly to still work OK. The only reason to change it would be for aesthetic reasons.

[BarneyBoy]

A moot point I know, but doesn't BI-Xenon mean that both high & low beam are Xenon?
In which case if there is only low beam Xenon on the Golf/Jetta, they should be called simply 'Xenon'? Dunno.

[Maverick]

A moot point I know, but doesn't BI-Xenon mean that both high & low beam are Xenon?
In which case if there is only low beam Xenon on the Golf/Jetta, they should be called simply 'Xenon'? Dunno.

The Golf/Jetta has Bi-Xenon, it has the motor driven shutter for both low and high beam.