Driving Lights, install, wiring

[jamesflys]

I'm installing Driving lights on my Tig.
After looking though the forum's I've gather the following info which I would like checked and that I have it right for the Tig.

The gear:

"XXX" 200mm HID Pencil and Driving light pair.
Wiring kit (I usually make my own but this looks OK)

The info I need checked:
1. It is OK to connect to the High beam wire behind the connector. (I do not have HID head lights)(the computer should not mark the light as faulty)
2. the High Beam wire is White with black strip.
3. I'm taking main power from the bus bar on the outside of the Fuse box.

When I finish I'll post a few photos

[Captain Bungers]

Please do! I did enough chopping with the nudge bar...

Can you link the details of the lights you are getting?

[jamesflys]

Here are the links;
Lights & wiring kit
HID Driving Light - 12V/Spot/200mm
HID Driving Light - 12V/Spread/200mm
Driving Light - Wiring Harness

Nudge Bar
Volkswagen Tiguan 76mm Ultra Nudge Bar with Lower Protection Plate - ADR Compliant Series (11/08 Models on)

[NZTiguan]

For what it's worth, I believe you WILL get errors thrown up if you tap into the headlight wiring. The only way to avoid that would be to direct wire from the battery. This was the issue I had when retro-fitting front fogs and I wired direct from the battery with a relay switching system off the rear foglight wiring.

Cheers

[jamesflys]

The Light are on and someone's Home!

Just finished installing Driving lights on the Tig.
Background.
The VW Tiguan is a European Built car designed for the European Market with it's cold snowy winter and the associated " Salted" roads. Because of this the Tiguan is built with sealed wiring, air dams, and insulation, that make adding anything hard.
Wiring the Lights.
The Tig. uses electronic control systems. So when you activate the High beam on the light stork, this send a signal to the computer which then activates the light circuit. Part of this control is that the computer monitor the light by what resistance is on the wire, no resistance = short, high resistance= broken wire or blown bulb, in both cases the computer faults the circuit, shuts it down and puts a wiring in the MFD and a warning light. This is a problem when hooking up the the high beam wire, if the resistance is out side the range set in the computer it will fault. I was lucky that the resistance of the relay did not change the range too much.
A VW head Auto electrician could or would not help with wiring of non VW parts to the car, but suggested if it Faulted to try "a hand full of resistors till you get it right" . This is not for the faint hearted, blow the computer and your up for big money.
Bar.
I looked at both the Number plate bar aka. auxiliary light bar SCA Driving Light Bar - Universal - Supercheap Auto Australia and a full Nudge Bar (see link above in the thread).
I feel that the number plate bar will not work well on rough roads as the Tigs has about 150mm of plastic and foam from the front bumper to the first metal cross member. You would have to "dowel" out from the cross member, even with small low weight lights the Aluminium folded bar would still vibrate.
The above Nudge bar will not stop a Roo. But it is solid, you will mount any light on it and it will stop someone from backing into the Tig.
Lights.
I went for HID lights and how they light up the night! I mounted one driving and one Spot and they give a great spread and light out to 900m.
Two things that are a bit annoying, when cold they take 3 seconds to build to full intensity and the blue/ Day light just drowns the yellow high beams of on coming cars, you just can not see the loom of the light till you see the car itself.
So
Wiring Driving lights
Remove the power from the battery, remove battery. Below and behind the battery the main Wiring Loom goes though the fire wall.
Go into the passenger side foot well, remove insulation pad to see were the loom comes into the dashboard. Use a cut off coat hanger to push though the bottom of the rubber cover. Caution go easily and under the wires. You are pushing though the main wiring loom which is open on this side, also do not tear the rubber boot.
Go back under the bonnet. The rubber will "seal" around the hanger wire. I removed the terminal ends from the block on the end of the switch wires. (white and red), then "loomed " the wires to the end of the hanger wire with tape, lubricated with washing liquid and very gently eased the wire back into foot well. Later permanently seal with a dab of silicon. Getting the switch wires across the switch was not easily (every thing is packed in and sound insulated
Switch location.
I found a unused recessed screw hole on the left back edge of the drivers side dashboard in the foot well. The switch is easily reached but not intrusive and is out of the way.
Relay
Mount Relay, I did this on the left hand side to keep all wiring on that side as it is not wise to run any thing across the fire wall as the Turbo is on the back of the Engine and will bake any thing with out a insulation cover (see photo)

Earth.
Just behind the fuse box on the fire wall is the Earth "Strap" for the car, this is were I screwed the earths for the lights and relay. (see photo).
Switch Wire (red).
Pull the left hand head light plug for the light assembly (it is latched/locked on), cut the cover on the loom to give easier access.
Find White wire with black strip. cut off insulation and solider (suggested by head Auto electrician) or the quick connector that comes with the wiring kit (this may give problem later in life), re loom with Eleco tape and plug back in to light assembly.
Main light power (Fused heavy white wire)
Open the fuse box, on the front of the box is the main power bus bar with the power from the battery bolted in the middle. I piggybacked under one of the out side nuts.
Power line to the lights.
Another fiddly job. from the relay (do not plug any thing in yet) run the heavy black covered light loom under the left head light assembly to the gap between the light assembly and the Radiator. there is a wind dam in front of the conner of the radiator to the Bumper, but there is a small hole (35mm?) at the front of the dam to get the wires though. Use the Coat hanger again, you will have to bend and cork screw it to get it to were you can loom the wires onto it with tape again. Zip tie the loom to the grill so it is not flopping around inside the grill and so the wires will not fall out of reach, as the area is closed and covered with wind dams.
Now the moment of truth!

Replace Battery.
Connect Battery leads.
Start Tig. All warning lights should go out went you drive over 15kms/h

Connect loomed Light power to lights.
Connect Switch wire block to Switch.
Connect Fused power wire to Relay.
Flash High Beam with the switch on and your New driving lights should flash as well. If not check that you pushed the left hand head light plug for the light assembly all the way home it will clicks (Opps that was my problem, I forgot put the plug on at all).
Hope this help, and
Good safe driving.

See photos on

https://picasaweb.google.com/jamesflys/TigsLights?authkey=Gv1sRgCN-CwrerppPKowE

[NZTiguan]

In NZ you'd get to use these until the first cop saw them switched on or you needed a warrant of Fitness. Personally I feel that your description of how they're so strong they cancel out oncoming headlights until you can see the vehicle itself makes me extremely pleased that I'm not the one driving towards you. Great things for off-road use but capable of creating mayhem on the roads. So, I applaud the work done but I hope you only intend to ever switch them on when there's zero possibility of anybody coming the other way.

Cheers

[doc dogg]

Personally I feel that your description of how they're so strong they cancel out oncoming headlights until you can see the vehicle itself makes me extremely pleased that I'm not the one driving towards you.

I've got Bixenons optioned on my tig and have noticed the same thing when they are on highbeam, but I think it has more to do with the piss poor light that most cars give, especially older cars with faded ploycarb headlight lenses (plus being in the ACT every second car has one headlight out ) I find that I'll see the headlights of approaching car shining in the roadside trees before I see the "halo" of light on the road.

[jamesflys]

I feel it's the "Colour" or temperature of the Light, the Blue/Day light colour is in tune with your eye, we "get use to" the yellow of older lights. These new HID light just show how Inefficient the old lights are.

Having said that. Why I bought these lights are that I do use them for the purpose of driving long distance at night in the country.
So pick the light to fit the purpose you are going to use them for, do not buy HID driving lights if you are only in "town".

[Captain Bungers]

...(plus being in the ACT every second car has one headlight out )

Why is that? It is something I have noticed as well! Crazy Canberrans...

[ethosguy]

Any chance of a couple of photos from the drivers position showing the:
std headlight performance,
both driving lights on,
the pencil beam and the
driving beam?
ta

[joel0407]

I'm about to install some driving lights on my Skoda Yeti (read cheap Tiguan but better). I have Bi-Xenons so I'll be tapping into not the high beam wire but the wire that opens the shutter. In order to attemp to get around throwing an error with the CANBUS I am going to use a transistor to operate the relay that will inturn operate the lights.

Reason is the coil in the relay has a load of 85ohms or about 2 watt or 150 milliamps at 13.2 volts. The Transister only needs 0.03w or 0.002 milliamps. Hopfully the very small power drain of the transister will be undetected by the CANBUS. The transistor can only handle about 500 milliamp on the Emiter and Collector side which will be plenty to power the coil in the relay but hardly enough to power a set of driving lights.

I'll keep you guys posted as to my results.

Happy Days

[joel0407]

Ok the last 2 days have been rubbish to say the least. Well until about mid day today anyway.

I have done a bucket load of searching, posted questions on several forums and sent a few Private Messages to people who had posted pictures of Skodas with driving lights. I was hoping that other Skodas might just use the same colour code with the head light wiring. Still no idea what wire was the high beam wire so I could use it to activate the relay.

All the wiring is sealed so I cant just test from the back of the plug. If I unplug connector, the Contorl Unit detects a break in the system, throws a code and turns off the light so I cont test from the end of the unpluged connector.

I managed to find the relay inside the head light and check the wires on the back. Power was all over the place and never anymore than 2.5v.

I was pulling my hair out and starting to think it wasn't going to be possible. A mate had suggested that I run a kick switch to the floor and operate the driving lights seperatly but that would annoy me to no end.

So late last night I found a site that had a downloadabe copy of the workshop manual and sold the key to operate it for 9.99 pound. I down loaded it over night and it turned out to be the best money I have ever spent on the Yeti.

I spent a couple of hours studying the circuit diagrams and by mid morning I was convinced that it couldn't be done. Turns out the Bi-Xenons have there own Control Unit. It monitors individual wheel speeds, steering angle, rear axle heigh to name a few. Turns out its a very cleaver unit. It receives Data from the main ECU and power then does it's own thing so there is no power wire as such going to the unit to open the shutter. It has it's own power and opens the shutter when it's told to via CANBUS data.

Then I considered that some people sell change over headlights from Halogens to Bi-Xenons. I checked the circuit diagrams for NON Bi-Xenons and found there is a wire from the power control unit that supplies power for high beam. Low and Behold it still workes even though everthing else is settup for Bi-Xenons.

So I now have a high beam power wire to activate my relay for the driving lights. It's Yellow with a grey line on the left side head light. I beleive ut's differnt on the right.

Happy Days.

[tigger73]

Thanks for posting back your findings. I am sure its going to save someone else a lot of heartache in the future.

[Tiggy11]

Hi Jamrsflys, good posts with some great info.. I have just bought some ipf 800xs lights I am going to have a go at putting on myself. I am thinking of getting a 35 or 55w HID kit to put in the driving lights. A couple of questions for you
- how many watts are your HID lights?
- what type of ballasts do your HIDs use? ( analog, digital or Canbus)

Thanks

Sent from my RM-821_apac_australia_new_zealand_218 using Tapatalk

[mike64]

Great documentation thankyou. I have installed a Rigid Industries SR2 led flood bar. The only thing I can add is I am using a Jaycar SPST 15Amp fused relay (catalogue number SY4076) with no adverse ecu effects.

Tiguan 130kw TDi