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DIY/Review/Comparo: Sub-$1k OEM bi-xenon headlamp upgrade

XGC75

XGC75

Go Kart Champion


Introduction and disclaimers
This DIY guide and review covers upgrading from the base halogen headlamps OR from replica Bi-Xenon headlamps to an OEM Bi-Xenon non-LED headlamp setup. You will have working low beams, high beams, turn signals and DRLs. You will not have AFS or auto-leveling.

Note: This install will not make the LEDs of a 2012+ LED bi-xenon housing light up. You could feasibly still use these LED bi-xenon housings and this DIY to achieve the functionality outlined above, but the LEDs will not light up and you may still have a bulb-out error (I don't know for sure unless someone chimes in here). To enable the LEDs, you'll need an extra pin from the highline CECM (part ending in 87) that is not available on the midline CECM.

Some cars that were equipped with halogen headlamps from the factory still have this highline CECM, so check under your steering wheel. It's also worth noting that even if you have the high-line CECM, my DIY will work for you. We don't even touch the CECM except via vag-com to program.​

Overall, had everything worked out for me the first time around, I would consider this an easy DIY. I had experience dropping the bumper before and had swapped from my factory-equipped halogens to Ed's 2-generation bi-xenon housings already, so my overall install time should be on the order of 3 hours. 3 hours of pretty easy work. In reality, without the learnings I'll share with you here, troubleshooting and documenting as I went, it took me about 9 hours spread across a few sessions (I broke stuff unrelated to the swap). You'll see that reflected in some of the pictures and videos along the way. I expect that my DIY will be enough for you to perform this install without any questions. But, if you have questions, post them below and I'll do my best to answer them and update the OP.

Lastly, don't be off-put by the de-pinning and re-pinning process. Sure it's not something that you come across often, but it was one of the easiest parts of the install. Certainly worth the ~$50 savings over the Kufatec or ECS harnesses, and with these harness adapters you'll still need to re-pin for high-beams unless you want to run a wire through the firewall.


Prep and parts

Tools:
  • Flat-head screwdriver
  • T-25 and T-30 torx bits or drivers
  • Pliers (or dedicated crimper)
  • Wire cutters
  • Paper clip for de-pinning
Parts:
For new OEM parts, use this link.
  • 2 Housings (new or used) (left and right)
  • 2 Bulb and Ballast pairs ("genuinexenon" on Ebay worked out great for me - excellent prices on OEM or better components)
  • 4 Screws to hold the ballasts to the housings (I used basic sheet metal screws I had lying around, they worked great)
  • 2 14-pin connectors for the bi-xenon housings (part# 1J0-973-737)
  • 4 small connector pins (part# N10335807) (you'll only need 2 but it's a good idea to order extras just in case the first crimp doesn't work out as planned!)
  • A bit of 16 gauge wire
  • A bit of electrical tape
  • You may need city lights and turn signal bulbs, depending on whether they came with your headlight housings.
  • You may need 2 bulb retainer rings, depending on whether they came with your headlight housings. (Part # 5M0941645)
  • You may want new bumper guides (left (5K0807227A) and right (5K0807228A)) in case you break your tabs removing or re-installing the bumper.

Note that not all parts are laid out here!


Cost
Note that these are my costs, including shipping.
Cheapest cost: $786.72My cost: $1044.02(Extra Items I ordered for my particular install)

Install DIY
First, drop the bumper. It doesn't have to be removed completely, but that would help. If you don't remove the bumper completely, I recommend draping some micro fiber cloths around the edges of the bumper so it doesn't scratch the paint on your front fenders as you move it around. There are plenty of adequate bumper removal guides around so I'll just link to one here: Bumper Removal Guide



Now remove your existing headlights. Start with the connector. If you've never toyed within one of these connectors, they can seem like a pain to unlock. I like to just grab onto the front lip of that tab and pull it backward in the direction of removal. It'll eventually give way, unlock with a click and the connector will pop right out. As for the rest of the headlight removal, there are again some pretty good DIY's out there. Such as this video (which doubles as a second bumper removal guide).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7-BV_Ny-30


Sidenote: In my own install, I chose to replace the bumper guides. I did this because I messed up a few tabs on this piece doing my first bumper uninstall/re-install so my bumper wasn't well aligned on either side for a while. Buying new bumper guides (linky) fixes this for me. Do I recommend replacing the bumper guides in your install? Yes. I think that unless you're already adept at removing and installing the bumper you'll be well-suited to preparing with these parts just to be safe. If you don't have them handy and do mess up the tabs, do yourself a favor and remedy that quickly. Otherwise your bumper will "train" itself into the incorrect position.

If you're replacing these guides like I did, be very careful removing the bumper guide from the headlight guide! Put some Pb Blaster or WD-40 on the threads between the two parts and let it soak overnight. I had to torque so hard on these bolts that I ended up stripping the brass nut from the plastic molding of the headlight guide. Now the nut rotates with the bolt and I'll never get the old bumper guides off the headlight guides cleanly. I had to order new headlight guides (5K0807571J and 5K0807572J) in order to use my new bumper guides.



Rusty nuts.
​

With the headlight unplugged and removed, it's time to get to re-pinning the connectors. Now this may seem daunting for anyone who isn't mechanically (or electrically) inclined, but once I got a feel for it it was the easiest part of this install.

What we're doing here is removing all the pin and wire pairs from the 10-pin connector used to plug into the halogen headlight housing and putting them into the correct sockets of the 14-pin connector used in the bi-xenon headlight housings. See the table below to get a feel for what each of these pins do, their color code, their location in the 10-pin harness and their new locations in the 14-pin harness. Those extra 4 pins on the 14-pin harness are used for the AFS and Auto-Leveling systems that come on cars with these bi-xenon headlights installed. Not using those pins isn't going to impact the functionality of these lights, aside from those functions not being available. Use the video below as your guide through the de-pinning and re-pinning process. It'll show you how to:
  • Unlock the 10-pin connector
  • Use the de-pinning tool to unlock individual pins
  • Remove the pin from the 10-pin connector socket
  • Insert the pin into the 14-pin connector socket

Sidenote: Your 14-pin connectors will come unlocked, but in case you need to unlock it, slide that whole purple piece within the connector in the direction away from the arrow. Sliding it towards the arrow will lock it. In the locked position you won't be able to slide pins in or out, and the connector won't insert all the way into the headlight housing header. (Header is a fancy term us controls engineers use to describe the fixed end of a connector whether it be male or female). The second video has a demonstration of this at the very end.​

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRPfxHxUSMo&feature=youtu.be




10-pin connector as it comes from the factory:


You'd perform this process for all pins except for 10-pin connector pin 1 and pin 8. You may have noticed that pin 8 of the 10-pin harness will need the smaller pin crimped onto it to fit into pin 11 of the 14-pin harness. Pin 1 isn't necessary in the bi-xenon setup, so we'll use it for pin 7 of the 14-pin harness. Sound confusing? Take another look at the table above.

Pin 8 of the 10-pin connector is for the halogen high beams. In its stock function it needs to carry enough current to power its own bulb. Yet in the bi-xenon setup (the defining characteristic of all bi-xenon headlamps, actually), the high beams are generated from the same bulb as the low beams by simply moving a shutter out of the way. This shutter actuator takes considerably less power but draws from the same voltage as the high beam bulb, so it's perfectly adequate to put the smaller pin needed for that actuator onto the larger high-beam wire.

The crimping process itself is pretty straightforward. You don't need to have a proper crimping machine for this application. In fact, I'd argue that unless you have a crimper designed particularly for this sized pin, just use some pliers to fold the tabs of the pin over. There are little burrs on the inside of the tabs that will grab onto the copper wire and make an electrical connection, so your indication of a good crimp is simply to make sure that it's robust to a firm tug. If the wire pops out, don't reuse that pin. You bought extras for that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gLCfxmP0dU


And this was my good crimp:



Pin 7 of the 14-pin harness is the ground path for the city lights and turn signals. This function isn't present on the 10-pin harness so we need to make it happen here. Fortunately we have an extra pin from the 10-pin harness to use as a donor for this ground lead. First, cut that extra cyan and yellow wire off the harness as close to the harness wrap as you can while still having enough left on the harness bundle to be able to isolate off the bare copper wire. Then you'll need to fix an extra length of wire to the newly freed pin so that it can reach the ground strap. There are a ton of places you can use as a ground for these leads all over the engine bay so choose whichever you feel would give you the best results.

Note: A couple comments on the ground leads. 1) try and make the lead as short as possible. These bulbs won't be damaged by long leads and induced voltages so it won't make a huge difference, but it's always good practice to minimize lead length. 2) Avoid using the screws on the inner side of the headlamps above the radiator. The screws which hold the brown sensors in. Those are your airbag sensors and it appears that those sensors are grounded through the screws, so attaching a free lead there may induce some noise into the sensors and render them ineffective. See the below pictures for examples of my leads and where I decided to attach them.​















Note: Traditionally, you're not supposed to solder wires in the engine bay. The reason for this is that the solder joint is very rigid and doesn't stand up well to heat cycling. Especially for connections to the engine, which move around a lot, these solder joints can crack and split. For this application, however, I decided that because this lead wouldn't be moving except under its own weight (dem lateral Gs, doe) and it wouldn't be incurring much thermal cycling, it would be better to prioritize the better current path a solder joint can provide. If you can't or don't want to solder these wires, though, you could crimp two connectors to join the wires together. It could go either way without any issues. Especially considering that the city light doesn't draw much continuous current and the higher current draw of the turn signal is intermittent.​

After installing all pins, I took a bit of hot-glue to the empty connector sockets to try and keep the weather out of that connector. Even though I'm not too concerned about the hot glue getting too hot in that part of the engine bay, RV Gasket sealant would be a better choice here. It'll stand the test of hot, cold, time and moisture throughout the car's life much better than craft supplies.



That is the extent of the re-pinning process. Now all that's left is locking the 14-pin connector (see the end of that 2nd video) and testing that all the lights function before you complete the installation. Test without the lights fully mounted simply because it's easier to troubleshoot the wiring without the lights in place. Of course for the low-beams to function you'll need to install the bulbs and ballasts. For the ballasts, I had a few sheet metal screws lying around. They work great in plastic and fit well so I don't have any qualms using them long-term.



Once everything is working re-install the headlights and bumper. Remember that there is a lot of slack in the 3 bolts on the top of the headlights so you can get everything lined up perfectly. At this point you can aim your lights using the two screws on the top of each housing and this guide, then you'd be good to ride for the rest of the car's life. Everything will work!

Without coding, though, you're going to have a bulb-out error for the high-beams. Unfortunately I sold my vag-com so I don't know my coding for reference (If I remember correctly my car is set to ROW (rest of world) lighting, but that's because I have LED tails and no side markers and not due to these lights), nor can I try out the following coding to make sure it works. Without coding, my CECM properly detects having all lights except for the high beams. However, I have it on good authority that the following coding will clear all codes.

http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?5946518-Halogens-to-Xenons-Swap/

Blushado said:
Ok coding for central elec with oem non led xenon and adapters is as follows. Check byte 14 bit 3, byte 17 bit 2and byte 25 bit 2. This works on a midline cecm part # ending with 86



Click to expand...

In fact, that was my cheif source of information in this swap - just a few guys (einvolk, papa1, oemplus, jpipdw and WickedMatt02) working through it figuring it out together. I think I've made a couple contributions to keep things cheap and simple, but the credit for this DIY really lands on their shoulders. That thread contains additional information about how to get your LED DRL working if you want to give that a shot.
 
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XGC75

XGC75

Go Kart Champion
Comparison
First I'll have pictures of the cutoffs and brightness comparison, then a visual comparison between the replicas and OEM.

Output
Now for the cutoffs and brightness comparison. My camera was set to static sensitivity, aperture and focus. I adjusted the exposure between 1/50 for the dim shots and 1/4 for the bright shots. The lights weren't fully mounted and aimed, so they're pretty much pointing wherever in these pictures.

OEM Halogen on right, Ed's lights with Morimoto 3Five kit on left:





OEM Xenon projectors with Osram Xenarc D1s on right, Ed's lights with Morimoto 3Five kit on left:





When talking about the output, I'll be talking about overall brightness, cutoff, aim and distribution.

These pictures speak volumes. First, you'll probably notice how sharp the cutoffs are on Ed's 2nd gen replicas. These guys definitely did not skimp on their projector assemblies. The light is aimed well, producing the brightest output right at the center of the cutoff. However, I've noted that when the shutter is removed to produce the high beam, the light is actually aimed a bit up and to the left. It's not a big deal, but it would be better if it were aimed straight ahead. As far as distribution goes, these are brightest right in the middle of the beam. You can see really far down the road because of this, but it's not very wide so it's harder to see around corners. Lastly, there is some bounce in the projector assemblies when going over bumps. It looks a bit like the lights are flickering. The projector assemblies need more robust mounting to the housings to remove that jitter.

Compare the distribution to the OEM projectors. You'll note that the OEM projectors are brightest at the top of the beam for a wider swath of the cutoff. This leads to better peripheral vision and better vision in adjacent lanes and roadside objects (like deer). It's more comfortable to drive this way. However, the cutoff isn't nearly as sharp as the replicas. In the long-exposure comparison, you can see how much light bleed there is on the OEM housing as compared to the replicas. I was actually really surprised by this.

Not surprisingly, the halogen reflectors were the worst of the bunch in light bleed beyond the cutoff. You can even see it in the low-exposure picture. I do not understand why drivers tend to think projector or HID setups are worse for oncoming drivers. These pictures prove the opposite! Also, the cutoffs are not quite "cutoffs". Brightness isn't as good as the replicas and I'd say that the distribution is just about on par.

Build
There's not really too much to say here. The replica housings required that the ballast were mounted externally to the housing, so wires had to be routed outside the housings. However, this never posed an issue for me. I never had condensation issues with any of the lights in this comparison.

Take what you will from the pictures of the projector assemblies inside these housings.

Replicas:




OEM:

You can see all the APS and Auto-Levelling hardware in there. Too bad it's so expensive to get that stuff working.



Finally, here's a comparison of the lights' backsides side-by-side. Replicas on the right.


Asthetics
Here's where things get tricky to review. Try explaining the difference between glass and plexiglass. That's what it's like explaining the differences between the aesthetics of the replicas and OEM housings. Chiefly, because inside the lenses these things look identical. Literally, the only difference is a tiny, tiny bit of chrome paint overrun beyond the chrome ring surrounding the projector. Therefore the only real difference is in the quality of the lens. It's tough to describe, but the OEM lens is clearer than the replica's. It reflects less light off the surface and appears just a smidgen more clear. It really is like comparing good plexiglass with an actual sheet of glass, only less distinct than you're probably picturing.

There have already been comments on the light bleed of the replicas, but surprisingly I saw some light bleed in the OEM housings as well. It isn't nearly as bright as is the case with the replicas but it's present in more locations. With that said, I think the light bleed issues people talk about with the replicas are blown a bit out of proportion. You can judge for yourself in the following pictures.

Replicas:


OEM:


Both:


Lastly there is the issue of peeling with the replicas' UV layer. My passenger side light had the peeling pretty bad but the driver's side was fine. Peeling lights have a strange "tiger stone" effect that makes the peeling either look completely fine (can't see any peeling) or completely unacceptable. In direct light it's fine, or under indirect light such as a cloudy day. However, you can really notice it if there's a bright source of light reflecting directly off the surface where it's peeling at at you.

Final Impressions
Frankly, I've come to the conclusion that, as the adage says, you get what you pay for. Halogen housings are really cheap but you get low output and poor aim and distribution. Plus they simply don't look as good (that's objective, I know). Ed's reps give you really good cutoffs, great brightness, okay aim and light distribution and look better than the halogen housings. However, you get cheaper lenses and bouncing lights. OEM, at this price configuration, gives you great brightness, great aim and great distribution. The lenses look excellent and stand to hold up over time. In my case, I also get to take advantage of the interchangeable city lights because I like the contrast look that the amber lights provide. All at an incremental cost over the replica projectors. I honestly would have been disappointed if I had to pay $2400 for the full swap including AFS controllers, high-line CECM, etc.

tl;dr: At their respective price points for halogen, replicas or OEM (without AFS and Auto-Levelling) you really can't go wrong.
 
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XGC75

XGC75

Go Kart Champion
Once I got everything aimed up tonight, I noticed that when I accelerate the passenger's side projector assembly shoots right up in the air. When I brake it shoots back down. So after all that, something is wrong with my OEM housings :laugh:
 
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GTIMK6_

GTIMK6_

Ready to race!
Thanks for the diy man! I'm planning to do this soon, just sorting out all the parts currently. I have seen many diys for doing oem xenon conversions, but this is by far the best!
 
GTIMKV20

GTIMKV20

APR Stage I
Wow, amazing DIY/review/project - thanks for sharing and answering some ongoing questions a lot of people surely had.

I love Eds replicas - and until they peel I will love them. Then complain, then go OEM or pick up another set of reps because for $500 for >2 years is fine with me
 
XGC75

XGC75

Go Kart Champion
Thanks! Yeah I like Ed's reps, too. Especially since seeing 1) how incredibly close they are to OEM in appearance and 2) comparing their cutoffs side-by-side with OEM projectors. For $500 they're a really good lighting package. I decided to upgrade predominantly because 1) I wanted amber city lights, 2) I wanted to do this DIY and learn how cheap it could be and 3) I needed to fix my ongoing bumper alignment issues anyways.



butchered by autocorrecr
 
jnj2455

jnj2455

Ready to race!
Oh wow, this is a great, very thorough write up man.

I'm mechanically inclined but anything dealing with electrical I usually shy away from. Never did well with that shit in school and probably won't too well in real life. That said, I've done some super basic wiring and recrimping of wires before so this doesn't really phase me more so than it being tedious.

This also brings up a pretty good point about the replicas' performance light wise. Aside from the shitty lens, the performance of it is like what 90% of what OEMs can do? That's pretty good considering the price we paid and the plug and play factor.

I'm also kind of at this point in my car's life where I don't want to drop any more money into the car as the miles start to pile on and it keeps depreciating. This may have very well just convinced me to re-clearcoat them and call it a day. Because, so far, the lights themselves work perfectly fine.
 
mycrors7

mycrors7

Go Kart Champion
nice write up!

Just out of curiosity, why did you bother doing the AFS and highline CECM? Is AFS that important to you? If so why?(im just curious)

If you did the highline CECM for the high beams, you could have bypassed that by modifying the kunfatec adapters.

Doing that route and buying used, i spent less on my OEM Bixenons than I would have buying ed's set.
 
XGC75

XGC75

Go Kart Champion
jnj2455 said:
Oh wow, this is a great, very thorough write up man.

I'm mechanically inclined but anything dealing with electrical I usually shy away from. Never did well with that shit in school and probably won't too well in real life. That said, I've done some super basic wiring and recrimping of wires before so this doesn't really phase me more so than it being tedious.

This also brings up a pretty good point about the replicas' performance light wise. Aside from the shitty lens, the performance of it is like what 90% of what OEMs can do? That's pretty good considering the price we paid and the plug and play factor.

I'm also kind of at this point in my car's life where I don't want to drop any more money into the car as the miles start to pile on and it keeps depreciating. This may have very well just convinced me to re-clearcoat them and call it a day. Because, so far, the lights themselves work perfectly fine.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's not a bad route to take honestly.

mycrors7 said:
nice write up!

Just out of curiosity, why did you bother doing the AFS and highline CECM? Is AFS that important to you? If so why?(im just curious)

If you did the highline CECM for the high beams, you could have bypassed that by modifying the kunfatec adapters.

Doing that route and buying used, i spent less on my OEM Bixenons than I would have buying ed's set.
Click to expand...

Thanks man. I didn't do afs, highline cecm, or even the kufatec adapters. I just repinned the harnesses and called it a day. For the basics I could have done the swap for $780.

butchered by autocorrecr
 
mycrors7

mycrors7

Go Kart Champion
errrrr i completely misread the last paragraph of thinking you spent $2400 on all that stuff. my bad lol
 
XGC75

XGC75

Go Kart Champion
:D

Yeah and fwiw I don't know exactly what people pay for the full setup. I hear that figure thrown around though.

butchered by autocorrecr
 
XGC75

XGC75

Go Kart Champion
So has anyone with OEM housings had trouble with the projector assembly teeter-tottering around while driving? I think it's fallen off an up/down adjustment worm screw or something.

butchered by autocorrecr
 
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