Headlights Hella or OEM Audi
oem Hella is really the only way to go for quality. if you plan to order them, do it asap. They take quite a while to arrive and may have several delays, but the quality is worth the wait. When I ordered my Hellas I think I waited about 5-6 months. My depo brand ecodes went right on my garage shelf and have stayed there since.
I did the Hella H1/H4 upgrade versus going Euro lights years ago, mostly because of cost. I ran them as stock for a long time, then relayed them with a relay setup out of a car my buddy was parting out. The Hellas are awesome, serious light and the top cutoff is very well defined.
I recently upgraded the terrible stock headlights on my XJ to Hella e-codes, and they also sold me a wire harness and relays they assembled themselves. Works great.
Hi! I tried several variants of headlights and stopped on Hella. It's used, but enlightens the way much better than new Autopal, Neolite and all this...
Basically I started with a brand new set of MK5-look Hella lamps, and cut them up to fit actual D2S factory MK5 Bi-Xenon projectors in them, and wired it all with theretrofitsource.com bulbs and ballasts. These are as nice as can be, and really have tremendous and clean light output.
So, I built these headlights a couple years ago for my R32. Basically I started with a brand new set of MK5-look Hella lamps, and cut them up to fit actual D2S factory MK5 Bi-Xenon projectors in them, and wired it all with theretrofitsource.com bulbs and ballasts. These are as nice as can be, and really have tremendous and clean light output.
Got the Matrix LED headlights and can say they are awesome. Good light all around and those automatic high beams are superb.
Some 30 year old Hella Smileys for my 448k mile car really seemed to clean things up.
Picture 1 is Audis LED headlight, while the later is a standard Xenon/Halogen set up. The Xe/Ha is cheaper to maintain, but the lifespan is a fraction of the LED. The LED headlight lifespan is said to be years of constant use without issue(20,000+ hrs). The downside to LED is if something does go wrong with the headlight, you cant just replace the LED, you replace the whole unit($1,000+ USD if not under warranty)
But the more-serious problem was the narrowness of the beams, particularly to the sides. Made it scary going around corners in the neighborhood -- my wife noticed the same problem. Plus there was a huge dark area directly in front of the car, short of where the projector beams started.
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