GTI Headlights Bright, But Can't see S^!#.

This is the problem I had and this is how I corrected it.

I looked all over the inter web and found all kinds of answers from igniters, to ballast, to bulbs, to sensors, with no clear answers.

Symptoms I had was the right headlight threw a scattered bean to the right and high, but very little light to the front of the car. The left light threw a scattered beam low and to the left, but again nothing much to the front of the car. Throw the high beams on and the beams from both headlights light up the sky. If I lived near an airport the FAA would have got me spotlighting aircraft.

Fact is most of us are getting our MK5's second or third hand and we do not know what the previous owners have done.

I decided to remove the headlights from the car to see what was going on. Once the headlights were out , I went to remove the igniter and it came out with the bulb. So the bulbs were not seated correctly and had been crammed together. Once I put everything together correctly the headlights are working perfectly.

Point is take your time remove the bumper and the headlights and make sure everything is put together correctly. You may spend a little time and save yourself a lot of grief and money.

Are you suggesting people take the bumper and headlight casings out when replacing their bulbs? If so, that seems unnecessary.

I am suggesting if one is not familiar with how everything goes together or they are investigating a problem, removing the headlight assemblies makes a lot of since. It is not difficult and it provides a huge advantage of being able to see everything.

doc280 said:

I am suggesting if one is not familiar with how everything goes together or they are investigating a problem, removing the headlight assemblies makes a lot of since. It is not difficult and it provides a huge advantage of being able to see everything.

Click to expand...

X2

While it may be possible to change a HID bulb while the headlight fixture is in the car,
access is poor.
A fair number of people who have done that did not get everything back in place properly
because it is difficult to do with fixture in place.
Reports of failed ballast, failed igniters, etc when every thing is not aligned correctly resulting in poor contact and subsequent failures.

With the fixture out of the car what was difficult becomes easy.
For what it's worth, the VW shop manual indicates
the fixture should be removed for bulb replacement.
The chances of screwing up the bulb are greatly reduced when the fixture is out of the car.
And with the cost of the bulbs and electronics you can screw up,
it makes sense to get it done right.

Hmm, different experiences for different folks I guess. I'm not trying to sound like a snob or anything, it's just that I was able to change my bulbs in my MKV in 5-10 minutes, (including the time to take the filter off my intake). I just watched a YouTube video to know what to expect and everything was cake.

If you're investigating a problem, yes, obviously removing everything is best. Changing a bulb seems a little unnecessary, though, unless you're going in blind.

Again, different strokes and whatever.