[Jomeza001]

So the headllights on my new-to-me 2010 EOS LUX were so DIM.

I thought it was the light bulbs so I ordered brand new ones. D1S, Right??

I went ahead and replaced them.

Well the lights are so DIM!!

The headlight cover are NOT faded. The projectors are properly aligned.

Why? What am I doing Wrong? The light will light up about 5 meters and that's it. It's very dangerous to drive it on the road.

Can someone help me understand what I'm doing wrong? What should I do?

Thanks.

 

[cb391]

Some things to look for are Use of correct bulbs, bulbs properly seated, all aiming mechanisms properly adjusted and mechanisms for leveling or moving the lights up or down like for high and low beams are operating properly.

 

[silvershadow]

Check voltage at the battery terminals and individual bulb sockets with the engine running at a fast idle [1000rpm] and the lights turned on.

The voltage should be around 13.8V to 14V for effective brightness - any less and you need to check the electrical system for voltage output and voltage loss in the wiring to the headlights.

 

[voxmagna]

So now I'm totally confused because the OP said he replaced D1S which is a Xenon bulb and replies were for halogen?? I'll stick with halogen to benefit (most) others with halogen bulbs: Don't go poking around high voltage Xenon bulb wiring with a meter unless you know what you are doing!

Check the voltage actually on the back of the bulb holders when the bulbs are lit to be as above 13.8-14V. In high current halogen bulb lighting systems, it's not uncommon to get a poor loom wiring connection, a poor ground on the bulb holder or a poor fuse contact which may cause a fusebox meltdown. Some members have had fuse boxes melt which is caused by poor contact on the blade fuse - remove fuses, clean them and the sockets with alcohol then make sure there's strong spring pressure when they go back.



Those working with older cars know original wiring is designed for minimal copper to reduce costs and with age, connections or joins inside the loom or outside can increase resistance. Although most blame halogen bulbs for poor performance and do led or HID upgrades, halogen light output can often be improved by adding some extra wire to reduce voltage drop at the bulb holder. Ideally you want to see no more than 0.5 Volt difference between the bulb and battery terminals. I doubt most car wiring can achieve that.

 

[cb391]

D1S bulbs look like there is an extreme chance of improper mounting. Found this info that might help with aiming. Ross-Tech: VAG-COM: Xenon Headlamp Adjustment

 

[voxmagna]

Good point. Halogen beam aim is adjusted from a control wheel on the dash which is normally set in the level position before doing headlamp alignment. But Xenons are electronically linked to suspension for automatic levelling height adjustment. It wouldn't surprise me if changing a D1S set the aim to a default low until re-calibrated with diagnostics to compensate for any variation in new bulb arc position? Xenons should have a huge lifetime compared to halogen and they probably don't expect them to be replaced.

The OP didn't know he had something different to regular halogens and it would be unusual to start changing Xenon bulbs unless there was no light output. But he may have had poor lights to begin with because they lost their setting and were aimed default low for safety reasons. The electronic aim control either needs calibrating or is faulty which a diagnostics scan may show as an error code.

 

[2phast]

Good point. Halogen beam aim is adjusted from a control wheel on the dash which is normally set in the level position before doing headlamp alignment. But Xenons are electronically linked to suspension for automatic levelling height adjustment. It wouldn't surprise me if changing a D1S set the aim to a default low until re-calibrated with diagnostics to compensate for any variation in new bulb arc position? Xenons should have a huge lifetime compared to halogen and they probably don't expect them to be replaced.

The OP didn't know he had something different to regular halogens and it would be unusual to start changing Xenon bulbs unless there was no light output. But he may have had poor lights to begin with because they lost their setting and were aimed default low for safety reasons. The electronic aim control either needs calibrating or is faulty which a diagnostics scan may show as an error code.

FWIW, North American EOS's do not have a control wheel on the dash to adjust the level position of the headlights. This is a Euro option or ROW option.

 

[voxmagna]

I think we discussed that before and I posted my dash photo of the UK/EU level control. Presumably USA EOSs with a heavy rear load and halogens will have their beams running high? Or are they adjusted to be set low to start with? They only controls a small geared d.c tilt motor in each headlight unit, do yours have them fitted inside then and not used? If you buy new aftermarket replacement halogen headlights they can come with or without motors and you swap over your originals if you need them.

I would guess they use the same type of simple d.c motor for their Bi Xenons to tilt a reflector by pulsing the motor to a tilt position. When you first turn on Factory fitted Bi-Xenons, do they momentarily tilt the beam up/down then go to their correct position? If so that's how they maintain the correct tilt and suspension levelling feedback changes beam tilt by adding or subtracting pulses from the normal level position. If they don't do this everytime, they may do it once when a battery is replaced if the tilt count is cleared.

I'm now thinking about what VCDS is doing to calibrate Bi-Xenons because it shouldn't normally be needed. VCDS Bi-Xenon calibration only sets the mirror motor to a known center reference position to do the mechanical beam set. In that case I'd suggest the OPs problem is a fault with no tilt control of his Bi-Xenon beams and the motors tilting them down are at the lowest beam tilt doing nothing? Either that, or somebody has adjusted the mechanical beam set when the tilt motors were not in their mid reference position? His best course without diagnostics is to let a dealer sort the problem. After connecting diagnostics they may get a Bi-Xenon system fault code to look into.

From memory the beam tilt in my halogens are quite slow and clunky moving relatively heavy internal parts. But Bi-Xenon is supposed to be an active system responding quickly and controlling a light mirror would speed it up.

I have an aftermarket pair of off road hids with D1S Xenons. Unlike the H7 bulbs and cheap bases, the D1S has a much better more expensive base design and I doubt you could replace them incorrectly and get the same problem on both lamps.

 

[cb391]

But don't US models with factory Xenon/HID still have electronically controlled self levelling?

 

[2phast]

But don't US models with factory Xenon/HID still have electronically controlled self levelling?

Yes, factory Xenons do have self leveling in North America. Vox was referring to a manual rotary control next to the headlight switch, which controls the up/down movement of the OEM Halogen headlights. For some reason North American cars do not get this feature, but its not just VW, Mercedes is the same. Euro Mercedes had a rotary control for the headlights but used vacuum to control the up/down movement, but only Euro cars received that feature, North American cars did not nor did North American headlights have the vacuum module integrated into the headlights.

 

[2phast]

I think we discussed that before and I posted my dash photo of the UK/EU level control. Presumably USA EOSs with a heavy rear load and halogens will have their beams running high? Or are they adjusted to be set low to start with? They only controls a small geared d.c tilt motor in each headlight unit, do yours have them fitted inside then and not used? If you buy new aftermarket replacement halogen headlights they can come with or without motors and you swap over your originals if you need them.

I would guess they use the same type of simple d.c motor for their Bi Xenons to tilt a reflector by pulsing the motor to a tilt position. When you first turn on Factory fitted Bi-Xenons, do they momentarily tilt the beam up/down then go to their correct position? If so that's how they maintain the correct tilt and suspension levelling feedback changes beam tilt by adding or subtracting pulses from the normal level position. If they don't do this everytime, they may do it once when a battery is replaced if the tilt count is cleared.

I'm now thinking about what VCDS is doing to calibrate Bi-Xenons because it shouldn't normally be needed. VCDS Bi-Xenon calibration only sets the mirror motor to a known center reference position to do the mechanical beam set. In that case I'd suggest the OPs problem is a fault with no tilt control of his Bi-Xenon beams and the motors tilting them down are at the lowest beam tilt doing nothing? Either that, or somebody has adjusted the mechanical beam set when the tilt motors were not in their mid reference position? His best course without diagnostics is to let a dealer sort the problem. After connecting diagnostics they may get a Bi-Xenon system fault code to look into.

From memory the beam tilt in my halogens are quite slow and clunky moving relatively heavy internal parts. But Bi-Xenon is supposed to be an active system responding quickly and controlling a light mirror would speed it up.

I have an aftermarket pair of off road hids with D1S Xenons. Unlike the H7 bulbs and cheap bases, the D1S has a much better more expensive base design and I doubt you could replace them incorrectly and get the same problem on both lamps.

Yes, we did discuss this before. I can't comment on how the headlights are set via the factory as one of the first things I did was retrofit HID's and readjust the headlights for proper projection of the light patterns. The headlights were also readjusted after the coilovers were installed.

As for the inclusion of the DC tilt motors, I do not know if these are present or not, my assumption would be that they are not included as part of North American headlights, but if you by chance have a picture of said DC tilt motor or at least can point me in the right direction, I would be happy to pull the covers off and inspect the headlights for the presence. I would definitely like to know if they are there, it would make a retrofit of the manual control much easier.

The factory halogens do not do any self leveling on key turn on like the Xenon's do and I couldn't tell you if they do anything of the sort with the batteries disconnected/reconnected and that is something I don't plan on doing unless the batteries need replacement.

I can tell you though that if the self leveling function of the Xenon system fails, you will get a MFD error about it, AFS System Fault or AFS Not Found or something similar (Adaptive Front light System)

 

[voxmagna]

Self levelling and headlamp washers are a legal requirement in UK and EU for all cars sold with Xenons. I don't know if they apply the same rule to leds, but rule makers can be slow catching up with changes. Since self levelling has to work for the car to be road legal, I'd expect V.W to include a dash warning of failure? That's the problem with aftermarket retro-fit HID kits, they aren't road legal for us. I wouldn't expect any self levelling system to work with halogens because as I said, it's to clunky and slow whereas a mirror they use with Bi-Xenons can be controlled much faster.

Is AFS also the system that can change the horizontal aim as you drive into and out of corners? I always thought that was smart to help pick out kerbs on bends. I can see as soon as you change suspension setup, you would need to do the VCDs re-calibration. Self levelling doesn't work that well on many cars approaching me. It's still seems slow to react and I see the white and blue light bounce.

 

[2phast]

Self levelling and headlamp washers are a legal requirement in UK and EU for all cars sold with Xenons. I don't know if they apply the same rule to leds, but rule makers can be slow catching up with changes. Since self levelling has to work for the car to be road legal, I'd expect V.W to include a dash warning of failure? That's the problem with aftermarket retro-fit HID kits, they aren't road legal for us. I wouldn't expect any self levelling system to work with halogens because as I said, it's to clunky and slow whereas a mirror they use with Bi-Xenons can be controlled much faster.

Is AFS also the system that can change the horizontal aim as you drive into and out of corners? I always thought that was smart to help pick out kerbs on bends. I can see as soon as you change suspension setup, you would need to do the VCDs re-calibration. Self levelling doesn't work that well on many cars approaching me. It's still seems slow to react and I see the white and blue light bounce.

This is how AFS works from what I have seen. This video shows a 2014 model, I have to assume the older models function in a similar fashion.

 

[UKMOGG]

I had the same symptom of low light levels focused on the road surface when the sensor linkage on the front left wishbone became disconnected. That appears to send the current suspension “level” signal to the adaptive light controller on ignition on. ( sorry if this already mentioned above)

 

[voxmagna]

There you go - 'Calibration at engine start'. They use a simple 2 axis d.c motor(s) and at engine start they run each motor to the end stops to determine the pulse range, then stop at the learned or calibrated reference position. Presumably if you have these you just get somebody to start the car whilst looking at them and you should see the projectors move to their limits on both axis? Thanks, I wondered how they did the sensing and sensors on the wishbones makes sense because you can get both steering tilt and height. Clever stuff!

 

[Techvet]

We had xenon units on our 2012 Tiguan and I have them now an my Volvo. Both went/go through their diagnostics dance at start up. We have halogens in our 2014 Komfort and they of course don’t.
Here in the US, headlights have been heavily regulated for years. Given the regulations we have on headlights, bumpers, and side impact protection, it’s wonder we have cars at all.

There is no way the authorities here would have ever given car owners control of headlight aiming via a knob on the dash. There’s just too many “Bubbas” that would have cranked the beams up to the max in order to spotlight deer and blind other drivers!

All joking aside, it’s only in the past 15 years or so that the regs have changed to incorporate some of the new technologies that our European colleagues had had for years.

 

[voxmagna]

There is no way the authorities here would have ever given car owners control of headlight aiming via a knob on the dash.

FYI it doesn't work like that: In the preset detent position like your USA halogens, the beam aim on the road is correct. But when you load up the rear or add a trailer hitch, the normal headlight aim goes skywards and you USA drivers are blinding on coming! Whereas we in UK and EU with our manual rotary knob can LOWER the aim from the normal setting but never raise it.

 

[2phast]

We had xenon units on our 2012 Tiguan and I have them now an my Volvo. Both went/go through their diagnostics dance at start up. We have halogens in our 2014 Komfort and they of course don’t.
Here in the US, headlights have been heavily regulated for years. Given the regulations we have on headlights, bumpers, and side impact protection, it’s wonder we have cars at all.

There is no way the authorities here would have ever given car owners control of headlight aiming via a knob on the dash. There’s just too many “Bubbas” that would have cranked the beams up to the max in order to spotlight deer and blind other drivers!

All joking aside, it’s only in the past 15 years or so that the regs have changed to incorporate some of the new technologies that our European colleagues had had for years.

I don't have any experience with VW's flavor but I did retrofit this on several Mercedes. The range of up/down adjustment is limited and as Vox said, it is to allow you to turn the headlights down when the trunk and/or rear seats are loaded up.

BUT, if you manually aim your headlights higher than normal, then use the rotary control, you can lower them down to the normal height, this gives you a pseudo high beam setup. I did this on one of my Mercedes, the one with HID's retrofitted. I liked it better than using the regular high beams, which were standard Halogens

The round black module inside the headlight is the vacuum up/down control, which is not included on US spec headlights.