Ben, can I ask if you already purchased your Hellas?

If you get a good independent shop, they should charge you less than a dealership.

corradog60stage4 up in Montreal sells HID conversion kits and is pretty knowledgeable about the HID upgrade process. See some of his threads.

I've been looking into HID upgrades, and am thinking about the Depo headlamps one can get off eBay. The Hellas are very expensive.

My understanding is HIDs do require the Euroswitch. I've bought one I know is made in China and hoping it will work for a while. The $US100+ some retailers want is VERY high. I'm considering asking a friend in Europe to price out the part there (in Spain) and have an OEM one shipped to me.

Will keep an eye out on this thread since I'm sure really useful information will be posted by other users.

 

I have not yet purchased my Hellas, but have been in contact with Hella. They have offered to sell them to me through a local garage that supplies the Hella products. Otherwise, ecstuning.com does sell the B5.5 Hella Bi-Xenon lights. For my HID conversion I do want to install the Bi-Xenons so I have the Xenon light for both my high and low beam. As for the OEM Euroswitch they can be bought for $46.20 + shipping on ECS Tuning, I'm just not sure if this is an absolute requirment for Bi-Xenons.

 

People have warned me any "Euroswitch"es you buy under about $100 are the ones from China. They aren't the OEM ones. Ask ECS Tuning if they will guarantee in writing this is the OEM Euroswitch made in Europe. I couldn't get any reseller whom sold them for around or under $50 to guarantee the advertised Euroswitch (even Rus from DubStop) they sold were NOT the aftermarket fakes from China.

If you don't mind, post the prices for your Hellas on this thread. It will give people an idea of what they cost and whether they are getting a good deal on new or used Hellas for B5.5.

 

On the ECS Tuning website they are listed as OEM, and the price has apparantly been reduced. Here is the site with full information...
http://www.ecstuning.com/stage/edpd/pagebuild_v2.cgi/?html=learnmore.html&productID=8602
As for the Hellas, I am pretty sure they are roughly $1100 per headlight

 

Welcome to Passat World, Ben! I have a B5 V6, but I can answer a few of your wiring questions. I last researched this topic about two years ago, so my answers might might not be correct.

You do not need a Euroswitch, but you should get one. :thumbup: It does all these fancy things. I bought my first one from ECS Tuning dot com for about $30. It seized up quickly. They sent another, free of charge, but that one lasted only a few weeks as well. Then I bought one from this guy. It truly is of superior quality. On these forums, I'm pretty sure that seller's username is vR32. ADDED: I paid $50.

First and foremost, I think you're going to need a 10 to 12 pin wiring harness adapter. The standard B5.5 headlights use the former, Bi-Xenon the latter. There's a write-up floating around here somewhere--or maybe at vwvortex.com, I forget--that better illustrates this problem.

HID bulbs require a ballast that can produce many volts to light them up, but run at about 35 watts over 12 VDC; you will not need to replace the existing wiring with that of another gauge.

It is dangerous to power HIDs via the reduced-voltage DRL relay. Unless you change the DRL connection (example), you will have to remove relay 173 (instructions)

For the auto-leveling to work, you will need to have sensors installed and connected. Read this.

If you're not comfortable re-wiring your car by yourself, I say take to a local garage.

Good luck! More people will likely drop in and provide more, better answers. In the meantime, browse the Info Base, starting with this index.

 

Tollins, are you headed to the May WI GTG at Kettle Moraine? Would love to talk with you about your HID upgrade.

I think the person you are referencing is now charging $100+ for that Euroswitch. Check out the thread created by B5Quantum in the Classifieds section.

 

I have been happy with my HID upgrade kit in the stock projectors...bought from corrado in montreal....much less money that and entire upgrade of the whole assembly. I did the upgrade myself in a couple of hours....

 

Don't have time to post several thoughts since I'm running DE-spec imported bi-xenons from a test car, though I can say in confidence that not all sub $100 Euroswitches are cheapo Chinese knockoffs. Lookup member 'vR32' (I think) on here and see if he's still selling them. Guaranteed OEM, and I think I paid something like $45 a few years ago.

 

Again, check out the thread created by B5Quantum in the Classifieds section. I believe he bought from vr32 and paid somewhat over $100 for the European-made OEM Euroswitch.

 

You do not need a Euro switch for the Bi-Xenons. Before you put them in you need to remove the day time running light relay (search for it) OR if you want your bi-xenons to operate as the day time running lights as they do in the W8, you have to bypass the circuit that reduces the power which is located in the passenger side kick panel. That's what I did and it was very easy.

I have no idea where you might find a good price on bi-xenons, but I got mine a few years ago for about $700 for a set. It was U.S. version so the wiring had to be modified but the Euro is plug 'n play, which is probably what ecstuning sells.

Also, yes the auto leveling requires some extra stuff. I went without it and they are aimed perfectly fine.

If you can remove the front bumper to install and then properly aim them then you can easily do it yourself.

 

Out of curiosity has anyone purchased the W8 lights from Hella, or through another distributor?

 

I installed my own W8 headlights, with some help of my indie mech (due to the fact I didn't have the specific tool to "push out" the harness connections). Takes a looooooooooooooooooong time too. I had to go from the 12 to the 10 pin harness, since mine weren't the E-code type W8 headlights.

Search for the write-up by SouperSport.....EXCELLENT write-up...it's what I used and it has the EXACT way to wire it up (to go from 12-10 pin).

:thumbup:

 

^^^ That's that exact page what I was recalling.

Link here.

N.B. Read that entire thread--both pages. Many good links within.

 

^ That's it! Super thread on it and definitely x2 on reading it multiple times all the way through. It'll become clear after your 5th time