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Full exterior LED conversion attempt

2K views 14 replies 6 participants last post by  CaptainQualude 
#1 ·
I did a lot of searching on this site, & didn't come up with a complete solution, so I expanded my search to the 'Net. It seems that the safe thing to do is to replace the non-flashing bulbs. If you replace the flashing bulbs you encounter a condition known as hyper-flashing because of lack of resistance in the circuit. There are workarounds involving splicing resistors into the circuit, but I really didn't want to do that. One theory that I came up with is a simple plug n play solution at the rear bulb holder assembly. I traced the path for the turn signal to a female connector on the backside of the bulb holder assembly. The male VW connector is available, so attaching a resistor across the turn signal & ground should make a neat & easily reversible fix, but I never got around to testing the theory. YMMV. The other issue is heat coming off of the resistor heat sink melting plastic, another thing I didn't want to deal with. The resistors need to be mounted away from anything they could possibly melt.





In the image below 31 is the ground & BL is the blinker.



I took a gamble, & if it had failed it wouldn't be the first time on this VW. LOL The cost would have been buying a replacement switch. There isn't a normal flasher relay to deal with in the fuse panel. The flasher & hazard function are part of the actual hazard switch. I pulled the hazard switch out & carefully removed the outer casing. In the image below there is an IC that reads resistance & causes hyper-flash if a factory style incandescent bulb is out, or if a LED bulb with too little resistance is in the circuit. Cutting pin #7 stops that function. I used a dental pick & carefully leveraged the circuit at pin #7 apart. It's a tight fit. There also is a fix for the flashing rate, but it would involve stripping the switch down to get at pins #4 & #5 to change the resistance there. What happens when cutting pin #7 is that while not exactly like a factory flash rate, it's slightly quicker, but it won't hyper-flash anymore.



This is the fully outfitted rear bulb assembly. There is one mod that needs to be done to the back-up bulb hole in the actual taillight. The hole is "D" shaded. I used an X-Acto knife To make the flat part of the "D" slightly rounder. It doesn't take much material removal to make the new bulb fit. I spent about a minute whittling away, mostly to keep the blade from snapping, & then 5-10 seconds with a shop vac removing what fell into the hole.



The difference in LED color between Warm White & Cool White. I used Warm White behind the colored lenses, & Cool White behind the back-up lights.



As for how bright they are, they are bright. These specific LED's are about 95% as bright as incandescent, & will continue to radiate 360° for their life time. You get what you pay for. The incandescent brake bulbs I pulled no longer did so. They blacked out a good portion of the glass, ala 1970's cube flashes, & the outside of the glass was a mirror that light no longer passed through, changing the output pattern.
 
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#3 · (Edited)
I knew I forgot to include something. "Error-free" LED's. It's a misunderstood term. It refers to the dashboard bulb out error sign & not to the flash rate.

 
#6 · (Edited)
It's possible, but I didn't come across any while searching. The other issue is light output. It doesn't matter what kind of bulb it is if you can't see the output. Smoked lenses that rely on amber bulbs are the hardest to get right. There are many 194 LED bulbs available, but you have to be really careful. Take measurements of the stock bulb & try to match that size. Incorrect sizing length can knock the reflector/diffuser loose inside the front turn signal housing. If the bulb is too wide the connection interfaces (sleeve & rubber boot) won't stay together. It'll vibrate loose & end up dangling behind the fender. All of that is also true for the bumper side markers. Then there's the front turn signals. Depending on the turn signal set-up inside the headlights, the bulb choice may be slim.

I had a brake light out, grabbed some LEDs @ NAPA, the guy assured me they'd "work fine" and not cause errors.

They did NOT cause an error on the dash, but the 3rd brake light was on dim, except for the outer two elements, which did not light up. Error city. :/
I just checked what you said, & yes, it appears that voltage is leaking up to the 3rd brake light. None when the ignition key is off & the brakes are pressed. It does happen with the ignition on, & it intensifies with the headlight switch on. Seems like another issue that needs to be solved.
 
#5 ·
I had a brake light out, grabbed some LEDs @ NAPA, the guy assured me they'd "work fine" and not cause errors.

They did NOT cause an error on the dash, but the 3rd brake light was on dim, except for the outer two elements, which did not light up. Error city. :/
 
#7 ·
I did some more searching, & it seems like the bleeding 3rd brake light is not an uncommon issue. There are many instances where the bleeding takes place on Golfs with completely stock bulbs in place. The fix for some of those people was to change the LED 3rd brake light strip, while others claim it was fixed by replacing a bad brake light switch.
 
#8 ·
If there is "bleeding" in the 3rd brake then that is the least resistant path to earth.

If it gets worse with lights on, then there is most probably a bad earth in the taillight housing somewhere.

Am I the only one not seeing pictures in this thread by the way?:confused:
 
#11 ·
I had the 3rd brake light bleed when I first put in LED's as well. One thing I noticed it that there will be a code in VAG-COM that also comes up with this. I believe the car is sending a small amount of voltage to test for the resistance of the rear brake light bulb, as there were 2 codes, and one was triggered by each side. I added some small resistors to my bulb holder and fixed it, it's been going strong for years now. I will try to find you the link to my prior posts on this.
 
#13 ·
#14 ·
lol no, but 2 codes showed up for me until I put the resistors in line. I believe it is just a way that the ecu was telling if their was a bulb out, even though it never displays it to us. I forget what the codes said.

If I have time I will try to see if I have the code stored on the old vag com computer, which was running a very old version of vag-com (not what I use now, but its around here somewhere). I haven't tried anything related to this for years and years
 
#15 ·
I'm using these in the BMW for the front side markers. Huge difference over the 5 LED versions. I will need to test fit them for the R32. These are the brightest 194's I've found. JDM Astar 18 LED.

 
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