Do Not Sell My Personal Information Jump to content


Recommended Posts

So I had a mixed day of success with making (or not) a few lighting mods on the GS. 

Boot Light

The easiest and the most successful mod. 

The boot light in the Mk4 GS is.... bluntly, abysmal. It's a single wedge bulb, but for some reason it isn't even a 5W but a 3.8W. You could be forgiven for not noticing that there is a boot light. 

oldboot.JPG

Very very simple to replace - unclip the light cover, pull the bulb out, replace and refit the cover. The key is the correct choice of bulb - the bulb is held pointing directly downwards, so you want an LED W5W 501 that emits in that direction. I used the (very expensive, but brilliant) Philips X-treme Ultinon:

Philips-Xtreme-Vision-Ultinon-LED-W5W-T10-6000K-2_750_750.thumb.jpg.cb9e8778b1deb9091dc50af6793a5717.jpg

So, without further ado, the result (same exposure value on the camera)

newboot.JPG

Puddle Lights

Next up, the puddle lights in the bottom of the door mirrors - the ones that light up when you approach the car with the key. 

These are 5W 501s, and a bit of a pain to change. I followed a guide from ClubLexus, but really struggled getting the second mirror back together. 

This is nothing like as dramatic an improvement, as the housing design is more efficient and it has a 5W bulb. The housing holds the bulb side-on, so the end-emitter LED doesn't work as effectively as it does in the boot. However, I did it more for the more sophisticated colour (the murky brown of a filament lamp seems rather dated these days). 

I have some pics I'll process if people are interested, but they're not brilliant. 

Indicators

I also wanted to change the front indicator bulbs for chromed bulbs (I prefer the look - sadly the rear cluster can't be de-oranged). 

In this, I failed. 

The bulbs I bought, Silvatec WY21W, turn out to be identical (even to the part marking on the bulb) to the XTEC ones I have in my Leaf. However, they could not be fitted into the GS (nor could I get one of the XTECs in) - the bulb holder in the GS is very tightly designed and the clip features of the chromed bulbs simply would not fit in (even after I attempted to grind a bit off the bulb using a whetstone). 

It's a shame that Philips and Osram don't offer their chromed amber bulbs in a wedge fitting

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites


No.

These bulbs are just courtesy/comfort and the car doesn't monitor them (they are not part of the legally required/tested/etc lighting on the vehicle). There are no errors (which people wrongly describe as "CANbus error"). 

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share



×
×
  • Create New...