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Lighting
Some may regard
lighting as a more cosmetic upgrade than a performance upgrade,
but european lighting is a vast improvement over our dated DOT
spec US lights using a nice broad lighting pattern with less dazzle
to oncoming traffic.
Lighting upgrades
can come in many forms: headlamp, foglamp, taillamp, signals,
etc.
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For
headlamps on the A3 models, up until recently, the hot upgrades
were the Hella dual round projector lights.
I prefer
a more factory look and chose the newest trend, Hella Golf-4
look lights made for the A3 cars. These are powered by the
new H7 bulb through multi-cut reflector delivering a very
white light on the road.
Before
these came to market, I was considering upgrading to European-spec
factory dual bucket GTI headlamps.
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Another option
is to retrofit HID or Xenon lighting to our headlights. I am not
talking about those cheesy colored bulbs, but true HID like on
the BMW, Mercedes and Porsche cars have on them. There are conversion
kits everywhere on the market now. I will be dedicating a whole
section to HID systems.
My foglights
are Votex one piece foglights. There is no center dummy plate
in these units and extends all the way across. Even these lights
are a huge improvement over the US spec foglights installed on
our cars here. The pattern is much broader and extends further
forward.
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There
are also rear foglights available to retrofit. In Europe,
all Golfs have them built into the taillight. Jettas (Ventos)
have bulb holders and wiring ready to go built into the
car. The US Golfs aren't quite so lucky. The bulb holder
is there, but a complete rewiring would have to be done
to make it work. The European brake lights light on the
outside whereas here in the US they light on the inside
(which is the foglight area on the Euro cars). The other
areas of the US cars light up as parking lights where on
the European cars only the center lights up as a parking
light.
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USA
Specification
Brake Lights
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| I
just recently found a way to modify the wiring on US spec
tailights to make the integrated rear foglight function through
the Euro-switch. I have posted these findings here.
Otherwise you can buy the 911 style Hella rear foglight that
mounts under or on top of your rear bumper. I have also made
a Quick Reference visual guide to go along with the installation
walk-throughs. Download that in PDF format here. |
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1993
thru 1995
A3 cars (all)
1996
- current
A3 car (all)
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While
it is trendy for guys in the US to install euro side markers
(actually a mis-nomer as they are not side markers at all
but side turnsignals or blinkers. The parts are called "seitenblinken"
in German), I installed them for safety reasons (okay, and
they look cool...). They really help people see your intentions
for changing lanes when they can't see your front or rear
signals, they can definitly see the side turnsignals. The
US DOT finally wised up to this (or the car manufacturers)
and finally imported new cars to the US and left them installed
on the fenders). US Cabrios in 1995 and 1996 actually have
the holes in the fenders to accomodate them without cutting
holes. All models after that do not include the holes or the
signals in the fenders, even though all the other models of
VWs have them as standard equipment. It makes no sense (update:
the 2001 model year Cabrios have them now)! |
The rest of the lights offer no performance gain as the other
lights listed do. They are primarily cosmetic. For example smoked
or clear or colored lenses to match or accent the car. It's all
a styling thing.
Next
- Interior
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