Lighting FR+

gallan92 said:

That's great, wasn't sure what the boot bulb was, but I've got 239's in 36mm and 38mm so will try the 38.

And the 501's I ordered are a pack of 4 so 3 will go in the front interior cluster and one in the glovebox.

Are the fogs HB4? I thought they were H3. Haven't had a look at them yet though.

Don't think i'll bother with the vanity mirrors, on that note but - my passenger one is smashed, any idea if they are easy to replace?

For my 239's I just bought cheap ones off ebay to see the result, the light is great but like I said its now giving me an error. Noticed on another thread one user said his error goes away if he changes in to reverse after starting the car up... might try that haha. I'm not too sure what I'd be looking for if I was buying ones with a resistor pack to be honest.

Yeah for the drl's I tried turning them, and even tried them in alternative fittings but nothing seemed to work.

Thanks for the info though, I'll post on here again with any other developments.

Click to expand...

Do you mean the mirror has smashed? If so I wouldn't have a clue in respect for changing that.
The boot bulb I'm sure I ordered a 42mm bulb but then had to stretch the connections so 40mm might do the job or even 38.
And as respect for the errors, you can buy number plate bulbs as a replacement unit for around £30.. I could never justify the spend though.
And now looking into upgrading to a mk3 fr this week... the joys of swapping all the bulbs back to standard! Lol

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk

gallan92 said:

Yeah the mirror itself is smashed, not really an issue, just a bit annoying knowing that its like that. Wonder if its easier just to order a whole new visor, or get one from the scrappy.

I'll try the 38 then, tempted to order a properly blue one though just for something different, when doing my interior bulbs I installed one of the really blue 501's that I've got, and it looked great but its so ridiculously blue that I fear it may just attract unwanted attention anytime that it was on. So now ordered some ice white ones as I'm really happy with the light off of the rear interior lights that I did yesterday.

Yeah for me bulb upgrades are just a cheap upgrade to improve the looks a little bit, I don't want to spend excessive money just to get that error to go away.

Must say the mk3 with the full led headlight pack looks great on the road! those lights really are a head turner. Hope you get what your looking for!

Click to expand...

Thanks. The full Led lights are a must on the mk3. They work really well. Just waiting for the garage to get in touch.

And yeh course it's not worth the money just to get rid of the light. Just be cautious though as I have seen many leons and golfs driving round with the number plate lights flickering on and off because of the current going through them as LED's.

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk

You need to find someone nearby with VAG CAN Pro who can switch off the bulb diagnostics for you. The underlying procedure changes memory cell values in the BCM which alters the configuration of the lighting system to do this. It isn't something that can be done by VCDS (other than the license plate bulbs) so it has to either be done with dealer tools or a tool that can directly edit the memory cells in the memory of the BCM.

Once you've had the bulb diagnostics switched off, you can then fit any LEDs in you want without having to worry about them causing a "bulb out" error because none of them will. And better still, you can use non CAN BUS bulbs which means you aren't then unnecessarily loading the circuit with additional resistance simply just to try and avoid the "bulb out" error.

This is what I'm currently in the process of doing with mine.

Having now read through the whole thread, for completeness with regards to stopping the number plate bulbs throwing a "bulb out" error with LEDs fitted, this can easily be done in VCDS (or within OBDeleven for that matter) on vehicles fitted with a PQ35 BCM by switching off bulb diagnostics within the long coding value of the BCM. This is done using the "Lamp Monitoring (Cold) License Plate Lamps active" setting which is Bit 6 of Byte 23. Simply just untick that bit setting (i.e. the reverse of what is shown in the screenshot below), commit the change, and clear any fault codes that may already be present. Then you can use any number plate bulbs that you want without a "bulb out" error being triggered for those particular bulbs




If you have any issues with LED number plate bulbs flickering etc. after being fitted, then also switch on the "License Plate Lighting w/o Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) [LED Light]" setting which is Bit 7 of Byte 17. With LED bulbs fitted, just tick that bit setting (i.e. the reverse of what is shown in the screenshot below), commit the change, and clear any fault codes that may already be present. In fact, probably best to do this anyway, even if your LED bulbs aren't flickering because any modulated voltage is likely going to upset the voltage regulator circuit in the LED bulb and could result in its life being shortened.




Unfortunately it is only the number plate lighting circuit that you can do this with using VCDS (or OBDeleven). For the other circuits you need VAG CAN Pro or a different tool that has the ability to directly edit the memory cells within a control module.

Speed-FReek: can the bulb check for the headlight bulbs be turned off with VCP, they don't seem to be listed in the image in post #26?