[Cycles]

Hey All:

Just swapped out the headlamp bulbs in my B5.5 and wanted to run something by everyone. Having never ventured into this particular area of upgrade, I blindly (no pun intended) picked up these bulbs on EBay:

I swapped them for my low beam bulbs, both sets being the same, 55W H7 rating. They dropped right in and seem to work fine.
I can tell there is a long history of experience in this forum with this modification. So... here is my question... given these facts - Will my car blow up?

Thanks in advance.

 

[B54ME]

hmm don't really foresee an explosion. I think most reports are they generally aren't any brighter then stock just a different color and they tend to burn out faster. but if they do the job they do the job. personally I have the silverstars and love them.


Andrew

 

[pete1]

Since they are 55W H7, you can rest easy that they are not gonna fry your wires. They're not really HID's... they still use a fillament, not a gas arc. The xenon, etc. are halogen gasses surrounding the fillament.

The main concerns would be *actual* visibility (blue is not as good at lighting up the road as white/yellow is -- there will be some dissent on this opinion). Also, if the bulbs put out a lot of UV, they will eventually yellow your lenses (it takes months/years). See is the product literature makes any claims regarding UV transmission.

 

[Cycles]

Ah that's good news, thanks for the reply. Actually I was being a be melodramatic..hehe.. but I have read about mis-matched bulbs causing problems and I know these are cheapo-s, so was a bit concerned. I suppose they wouldn't really last long selling these things if they were actually rated improperly.

My logic was to try out a less expensive bulb and if I saw any improvement (and liked it) I would work up the some nice ones.

Actually, the stock lamps (bulbs and all) in the '03 Passat are pretty darn nice, imho.

Thanks again.

Mike

 

[Cycles]

Since they are 55W H7, you can rest easy that they are not gonna fry your wires. They're not really HID's... they still use a fillament, not a gas arc. The xenon, etc. are halogen gasses surrounding the fillament.

The main concerns would be *actual* visibility (blue is not as good at lighting up the road as white/yellow is -- there will be some dissent on this opinion). Also, if the bulbs put out a lot of UV, they will eventually yellow your lenses (it takes months/years). See is the product literature makes any claims regarding UV transmission.

Ah thanks... good info. Having just skimmed the lit. on these bulbs I was pretty confident they were not authentic (altho the seller advertises them as such). I was careful with the gloves and kept my original bulbs intact should the visibility suck.

 

[Barnacle-Billy]

Simple answer...these things are junk. You get what you pay for...

 

[Cycles]

Simple answer...these things are junk. You get what you pay for...

Hmm... really? I guess there's no point in asking about those brake rotors I won in a Taco Bell scratch off contest then...

 

[A-Tiller-the hun]

Simple answer...these things are junk. You get what you pay for...

Bingo...

and they are probably worse at lighting the road than the stock bulbs...

 

[D.Passat00]

i installed these on mine before i installed HIDs, and they'll work, but because of the blue tint on the bulb, the light output would probably be less. it looked better though. i really scratched the bulb when i installed mine, and it still worked for 2-3 months before dying.