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Black headlights? Any good?


Wobby
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I am considering these for my passat....

Ebay - Black Headlights

My thoughts :-

Are they legal in the UK?

Will the light output be acceptable? I.e. will the black reflect the light outwards?

Any one fitted these or bought from this German supplier?

My idea was to fit these and also de-badge and de-chrome the grill, its the only chrome bit on the car smile.gif

Then add some black wheels and will look really $h1te !!

I recently changed one headlight after months of messing with bulbs, new one is great. Now the other one is playing up the same. It seems they're not really built to last, i think its heat damage. A new one from VW is £130.00!! fekr.gif

Thoughts anyone beerchug.gif

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If your car was a pre-face lift model 97-2000 then i would say go for it..!!

But if yours is a 2000 on, then i would stick with standard headlights as they look good anyway IMO.

But if you decide to go for it then i would say the black ones will light up fine as the main reflector behind each bulb looks silver anyway and just the main housing is black.

.

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Now then, they look like HID headlights. Has your car got all the necessary to actually get these working? I don't know what comes with the lights and what should be with the car, but if you haven't got HID's at the moment, I bet you need to spend a bit more when you get these to actually fit 'em. Headlight washers and self levelling motors are legally required, and the ballast etc. for igniting them are essential.

Also, with them being from Germany, are they set for right hand drive or for the German market?

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Ok, will look into the HID part Rusty, make sure i have all i need to run them. Wont bother getting them if they are HID.

My car is B5.5, its a dark sort of red colour (mrs wobby thinks Maroon), the colour everyone on here hates smile.gif .But i like it! Will take a picture and post it next time i am home during daylight, its will be v.dirty. Its not washed much and does 800-1000 miles a week, all opinions welcome. I dont want to get the parts, fit them and then decide it looks stupid!

Whats the thoughts with getting a de-chromed front grill to match the lights (all dark). The only chrome bits on the car are on the grill, was thinking it'll look better without them.

This one ....E Bay - De-chromed grill

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The lights are not HID, they have a switch on the back of each light to switch from left to right hand drive use.

Here are a few pics of what i was looking to do. My opinions :-

The plain grill does seem to look crap, but will it look better with the darker lights?

Dont know if the lights look better, or differant.

621758-Pic001.JPG

Car as it is now, dirty! smile.gif

621758-Pic001a.JPG

This is the headlight poorly pasted on, and at the wrong angle!

621758-Pic002.JPG

Car as it is again, normal grill

621758-Pic002a.JPG

This is the plain grill pasted on.

OK, will it look right with the headlights and grill changed, or am i better just changing the headlights.

Maybe i am better sticking an original light on and keeping the grill as it is. confused.gifgrin.gif

Thoughts appreciated

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I've seen a 2002 Passat with a plain Grill in my town (north london)...to be fair it looked better than i thought it would, but this chap has gone all out....the car is totally done up, but it has the standard body, no after market kit, all it has is the de-badged front grill, sitting on 19" wheels and is more or less sitting on the deck. i had to stop and ask what he had done to it....turns out he got a set of KW coil overs and wound it down to the max (so something like a 100MM drop)no doubt cosmetics wise looks good...but the ride must be awful for a fat salooon car. lord knows how he drives it! but gettin back to the grill...its down to personal taste really personally not for me!

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Yeah, MrsWobby thinks the grill looks rubbish and the lights not much better. But shes not the boss, i wear the trousers in our house!!!

I cant lower the car, its used to tow a trailer for work sometimes on construction sites! Its already too low as it is smile.gif

DO fancy 17" or 18" black alloys, dunno if they would match with the de-chromed front. I'm an idiot.

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Yeah! Rusty's the expert on VW's and especially diesels. If you want any specialist photo work, i'm your man! It just comes natural to me smile.gif

No photoshop either, i only had paint to work with blush.gif. The end product is amazing, grin.gifha ha.

What do you think to the lights and grill Rusty?

Edit!.... If you look really close you can see where i pasted, there is a very slight colour difference, and the bodywork doesn't match up 100%. Well, maybe thats just to my expertly trained eye!

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Only me!!!

I'd go for the lights Wobby, I like 'em and if they had them when I had my Passat I would have fitted them straight away. Lights make a huge difference to a car. The OEM ones are nice but I like the aftermarket ones a lot. As for the Grill, not sure, I looked in to getting one and they were knocking on £200.00 a pop for a nice one. Too steep for a bit of plastic.

Byeee! wink.gif

Oh and for your information, I like that colour. smashfreakB.gif

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  • 1 month later...

Me again !!! smile.gif

Fitted the grill and lights earlier today, heres some pics of them, all comments appreciated. IMO the lights look nice but not yet tried them in the dark. The grill i hated, although it has now started to grow on me.

Pics of the car as it was are at the start of this post for reference.

653997-Picture002a.JPG

This how far you have to strip down the front of the car to remove the headlights correctly smile.gif

653997-Picture008.jpg

653997-Picture009.jpg

653997-Picture004.jpg

This is the worst angle to look at the grill!

SSoooooooo, grin.gif, well........ car is still dirty, what do you all think? I am guesing the grill will get a bad response.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL !!!!!!

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Not got to using them in the dark yet grin.gif

Out later tonight so i will see how they go. I bought some new bulbs, sadly the high beam ones are the wrong ones, and i have now managed to loose one of the dipped beam bulbs. The high beam bulbs fitted are standard. And i have one of each in the lower beam, one xenon gas HID look forgot which K value and the other one is standard.

Just starting to get dark and the standard looked brighter, then when it got a little darker the HID one seems to look a little brighter!! confused.gif

These lights came with what i am assuming is the full Xenon wiring, i will post a pic if i decide to try full xenon cool.gif. Can't see how i can legally, fairly easy to fit washers to the headlights, but how do you go about fitting self leveling? This must be an electronic part built into the headlight?

Not sure about the twin ring side lights, looks nice enough, will post a couple more pics of them in the dark. Might as well completely fill the forum with silly pics of my car! laugh.gif

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Rob, well done I think it looks fantastic, the lights are brilliant, a job well done I'd say. As for the grill, not sure it wouldn't look better painted. That black plastic stuff is always a worry for me, looks better than the standard, just not what I was expecting, that's all. Tell me, is it smooth or is there a slight texture? It's hard to tell form the pictures. 169144-ok.gif

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Ehh, Cheers Tian.... i think the grill is smooth and designed to be sprayed if required. I can always change back to the original one, only cost £20 including delivery!

I like the look of it red, am sure i could spray it etc.

Mulkbear... when you say black strips, what do you mean? The grill or bumper mouldings? I like the bumper mouldings in black, i take the car on construction sites and sites where forklift trucks are flying about. I tend to drive the car until it touches barriers etc so that i have less sticking out the back for damaging! smile.gif Colour coding wouldn't take too kindly to me doing that.

Thanks for the thoughts. Been out tonight in the dark!! I think i've messed up frown.gif, got a bad feeling one light is switched to RH Driving and one is switched to LH Driving, the xenon bulb is better in the dark.

Going to get all Xenon HID bulbs and strip it back down, start again with the right bulbs and the lights set to LH Driving. I will take some pics of the lights in the dark, because the general areas are black it looks very differant, starting to like them a lot now grin.gif

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