A3 Facelift Headlamp Upgrade

Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 6:23 pm

Iv'e been after doing a headlamp upgrade pretty much ever since i got my A3... the standard
lights are dreadfull.. the HID upgrade made a world of difference but it was always at the
back of my mind that they wern't even close to legal.. HID's are better mounted in a
projector headlamp so when these popped up on Ebay i couldn't resist a punt

They arn't OEM but there a pretty good copy and i didn't fancy the Angel eye's you see
knocking about... the seller said he had bought them in error for his 1999 A3 not
realising they were from a 2001/2003 model and i wasn't about to tell him that you can
still actually fit them...at £80 they were a steal... all the post's i've read seem to pretty much say the same thing in
that you have to grind a small lug off the wing in order to get them to fit.. So lets see
whats involved shall we ?

Here's the old lights were gonna replace..

Straight away it became clear the bumper was gonna have to come off... you can remove the
lights on a prefacelift model without doing this but with all the work that was gonna be
involved it turned out to be the best way forward..

Bumper removed and the first headlight out... they are only held in with 3 bolts, the
indicator unit comes out first which is just held in by a plastic clip... trying the new
unit at this point it quickly became evident that this small lug people talk of that needs
grinding away is actually quite a large peice of metal and some plastic too.... pics below
are basically before and after of what you need to take out.. maybe with OEM lamps it
maybe less , i have nothing to compare the to sou couldn't possibly say...

Before

in red is the metal that need to be removed, in green is the plastic from the front of the
bumper guide.. and circled in yellow is the 3rd bolt holding the lamp in..

During

In that last pic circled you can see the plastic that has to be ground away from the bumper
guide... it was basically just trial and error... keep trying the unit till it fitted good

Finished grinding and some paint on to stop any corrossion... i only had black but it wont
be seen

Thats the bodywork taken care of.. i now had to turn my attention to the lamps.... they
came fitted with a manual adjuster but my car and i would imaginge pretty much all of them
comes fitted with an electric adjuster to raise and lower your beam... this motor had to
be transfered over from my old lights

Here's the manual adjuster arrowed on the new lights... it just twists out of the hole
below it..

And here's the motor removed from my old lights.. again it just twist out

And here it is fitted... it's quite tricky to do as you vave get the balljoint reconnected
to the mechanism inside so have the motor set at it's fullest exstension helps..

Next up comes the wiring... the old headlights have a round plug and the new ones a square
one and we all know only Jas is capable of placing round pegs in square holes... so what
to do ?? well you can find some adaptors on German Ebay i'm led to beleive but i'm doing
this on a shoe string (credit crunch and all that ) and after looking at the old lights it
became apparent i could remove the round socket and all it's internal wiring just by
twisting it out..
Here you can see the socket on the old lamp..

And here's the loom your left with ...

i cut all the wires out of the new lamp as i wouldn't be using these and then cut a couple
of holes in the rear cover of the lamps... one for the HID bulb as it's quite long and another for the socket to sit in of the old loom

Here's the Lamp all closed up and ready to go onto the car..

I should point out at this point i've done a slight fiddle as regards the bulbs, The other
reflector next to the projector would normally have a H7 single filament bulb in for use
when on HighBeam... the older lights used a twin filament H4 bulb for use as HighBeam and
also as a Fog light... the newer lights would have Fogs fitted lower down on the bumper..
so untill i source some cheap Aux Fog lamps ive fitted the H4 type bulbs where the H7's
would go.. just by removing the outer ring they drop straight in..

All that done it was now time to bolt the units back in.. i plugged all the connectors in
before bolting the units in as it's quite tight for space...

Both units in ...

All that was left to do then was put the bumper back on...

All in all, not too hard a job but a little more in depth than some might have you
believe.... they certainly improve the looks of the car and bring it bang up to date

So now the hunt is on for some of those lower Fog lamps...

Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 7:36 pm

WOW

Looks 1000s times better with the new lamps
Cool

Bet your well chuffed Wink

Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 7:41 pm

Cracking write up Mark, well done mate Applause

They make a fantastic difference don't they, takes years off your car Wink

I fitted some to my A4 in the summer but I didn't have to do the wing mod.
One thing I will say though is, get the alignment checked on a machine coz they are bound to be way out with you fitting the adjustment motors. Mine were like Marty Feldmans eyes Laughing

Well, come on it's dark now, you must have been out in it! what's it like? Very Happy

Si.

Inexperienced Joined: Oct 10, 2007 Posts: 49

Cool job, car looks tons better. I'd certainly be bricking it with an angle grinder so close to paint ! Are the units just held in place with the top 2 bolts? Mines got Angel eyes fitted and luckily didn't need to go to that great a length to fit, phew. Rear light next?

Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 8:52 pm

Nails... yeah your right about the alignment... as a starting point i parked my dads A4 which allready has projectors about 10 feet away from a wall... the projectors have a very pronounced line to the beam so i marked that line on the wall... then parked the a3 in the same place and adjusted them to the marks on the wall... not ideal but they've gotta be pretty close

Sumo... the old lights had 3 bolts and a plastic locator, 2 bolts on top and one underneath thats highlighted on one of the photos the new lights use the same 2 bolts on top and same locator but there's no attachment for that 3rd bolt... you can get some brakets apparently off ebay but to be honest with just the 3 fixing points they are solid and going nowhere.... rear lights i dunno... quite like the oem ones

thanks for the comments guys... enjoyed doing it

Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 10:12 pm

Top write up Mark!

Much respect for grinding the wing Shocked

real heart in mouth job! The lights looks so much better and as has been said really modernise the front of the car, bet you're well chuffed Cool

Inexperienced Joined: Oct 10, 2007 Posts: 49

That's where I went wrong then, I didn't take the front end off so not used the 3rd bottom bolt and didn't grind the metal away, doh.. Tight fit though, going no where. Also done on a mates drive in the dark, cold, wet... you know the drill, we've all been there. Also didn't know about this web site which has been a great source of info. since. Hindsight eh ?

How you gonna fit the fogs? S3 front end?

Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 10:54 pm

RE: The Fogs...

VAG parts god rest em.... used to sell an upgrade kit of OEM parts... basically the full grill can be removed from the lower part of the bumper and then replaced with a 3 part kit of 2 fogs with thier surrounds and a new center piece of grill.. but like everything else thats OEM it's really expensive.. if remember it was somewhere near £200 all in and just way too much... So keep searching ebay and hope someone is perhaps selling a full bumper with fogs and dosn't know the full value of them.... or maybe try and craft some standard sort of fog from the accessory market in there..

Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 1:38 am

Not mastered square holes yet, triangular yes Laughing

Cracking stuff.
Great when you get going on something like this. I love refusing not to be beat Very Happy

Again, cracking job, looks MILES better Wink

Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 5:57 pm

I've been waiting for years for someone with big enough plums to tackle this job, well done Mark, first class write up, cracking upgrade and looks Sooo much better.

Top job, guess what's on my shopping list........ Very Happy

Good work fella.

Si Wink

Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 6:18 pm

Only thing i would change if doing it again and doing what i did with the old wiring loom and plug is to position it further over to the oposite side from the HID as my plug was pressing against the side of the battery.. moving the battery a bit in it's tray worked but in hindsight it would have been better to position that socket slightly differently....

Newbie Joined: Jan 18, 2009 Posts: 3

Great work buddy!

The car looks the business now! Funny thing is... think I was bidding against you on ebay, on that exact sale!
Oh well, done a nice job, and a cracking write up.

Just need to find a set of lights for mine now!

Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 9:50 pm

Ok ... second part of this upgrade should be taking place on weds.. The fog lights...

I won this lower half of a facelift bumper on good ol Ebay and it arrived today..

It's missing it's right hand grill but i've checked part numbers and it's only £13 so i'll be ordering that tomorrow from the stealers....
after checking part numbers etc and a spot of measuring tonight i'm conviced (well 95%) it will clip straight onto my non face lift bumper
and give me the proper OEM Fogs that i'm after.... so fingers crossed and watch this space Razz

Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 10:26 pm

Ordered the lower right hand grill today, pick it up tomorrow, garage is all cleared out ready for the job seeing as it's just started snowing again... did toy with the idea of colour coding the lower half of the bumper but i've decided against it... it would mean doing the sills and also the rear bumper for it to look balanced and to be honest with it being a dark coloured car anyway i dont think it would make much diff..... plus it aint the time of year to be spraying with rattle cans..... i am thinking of doing the wing mirrors though with the wurth alloy wheel paint iv'e got to make them look like the alloy S3 ones... maybe... maybe not.. i dunno

Here's an S3 in my colour

they wouldn't be quite as shiny more of a match to the wheels... what do people think ??

Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 10:36 pm

Personally i think silver mirrors look really good Cool

I have often thought about buying the mirror caps, but never thought about spraying them! I would be very interested to hear how you get on.

Good luck with the bumper fitting Wink

Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 10:50 pm

you can get chrome caps off ebay quite cheaply but i think they look a bit too bling, the proper 'S' ones are polished alloy and fetch quite a premium... i think spraying them could be a cheaper option without looking bling and if i don't like, or it comes out crappy then just go back to colour coded.... i think if i could get the same sort of finish you got for your alloys i would be quite happy.. there quite tatty anyway.... think i'll give it a try

Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 11:12 pm

Yeah I agree with you about the bling! I like the satin stainless ones too. The cheap mirror caps are best avoided, OEM ones are the only ones I would even consider ....

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 11:00 pm

Fogs are in but i'm having a bit of an issue with the wiring.... i figured on just running them to the existing wiring of the fogs that were built into the main headlamp units before the facelift lights went in..... what i hadn't realised though is that on the old setup when your fogs were on and you flashed or turned on highbeam because they both use the same reflector it actually turns off the fog light whilst the highbeam is on.... you don't notice it because they both use the same reflector and one of those double filament bulbs.... so now cause ive used the same wiring when i turn on the lower fogs they come on fine... but as soon as i put highbeam on they go off.... grrrr

not quite sure how to sort it yet.... other than rewiring the fogs compleatly from the switch to the lamps... i'm guessing there must be a relay somewhere that is switching them off... ideally a fix to that would be better... ho hum... right final coat of clear on mi mirrors coming up...

Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2010 12:12 pm

neat write up! (Better late than never, eh?) Laughing

Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 11:20 am

super cool job Surprised

could i ask what type of cutting tool was used? thanks

Newbie Joined: Jun 04, 2011 Posts: 3

Looks great with the facelift style headlights. Let us know if that grille with the fog lamps fits straight on without any mods! Smile