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Aftermarket headlights causing blinker fault?

Mungus

New member
Hi,

Fitted new aftermarket headlights to my wife's MK5 last weekend. (Taiwanese not Chinese, & look a quality unit)
Done to replace the badly faded OEM units, which I'd already sanded / buffed out twice in the last few years.
I used the OEM bulbs in them. Not LED's or Xenons etc. They look great, and the headlights, (dip & full), and park lights all work perfectly. Great, job done I thought...'

However since they were installed, whenever I use the blinkers / indicators I get a light fault on the dash.
The blinkers themselves work, but after about 4 seconds of operation, the fault icon appears and you can hear the flasher (in the CEC is it?) speaker sounds like it’s flashing at maybe double speed...
Strangely it doesn't make the blinkers flash any faster... (what one expects with a traditional flasher unit with say one bulb out).
Its annoying to have the fault light keep coming back, and the wife is not tech savvy so unless I'm home it will be staring her in the face every time she drives. So it needs to be fixed.

I have a Ross Tech copy cable so ran the VACBI and got 2 faults:
01493 (M5) & 01497 (M7) titled "Bulb for Blinkers / Front Left" (& Right) (attached as a PDF).

So I'm wondering why, using OEM bulbs in what are basically just new headlight shells, its affecting the CEC or whatever?
Is there possibly some skullduggery amongst the wiring inside the aftermarket headlight shells?
Something that affects the CEC function via the CANBUS multiverse of weirdness?

Anyone who has knowledge of this kind of thing please do tell.
So far the only option I can think of is removing the new headlights and carefully swapping the wiring looms from my old shells into the new ones. (if possible).
After all if ALL the connectors, wiring and bulbs are the same old stuff, how could the CEC be upset by them? (assuming they all swap easily enough, as without removing them I'm not sure if the aftermarket connector plug pops out like the OEM one does).

If there is a coding solution I'd love to hear of it. But seeming as how the resistance values should be the same, how is this happening? (unless the new headlight connectors have some weird PIN connectors or whatever...

Help appreciated.
 

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Mungus

New member
No response? Hard to imagine this has never happened before as these headlight shells sell well on eBay and our MK5 is stock as a rock...

Anyway it occurs to me that if I do what some folks do when using LEDs in the mirror blinkers, and disable the "cold bulb" coding for those front blinkers, that it should stop the bulb out warnings? My only concern is whatever the wiring differences might be, that the flasher function in the CEC might still have the "double speeding" on its little speaker.

Any VAGS gurus care to comment?

UPDATE: tried turning off the cold blinker bulb test in the coding today. Nothing changed.
I’m guessing that as the fault is a circuit fault not a bulb out that I need another type of coding change?
Anybody know?
 
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Mungus

New member
Still no responses? Oh well, I guess the Ross Tech forum might know.
I’m guessing I’ll either have to swap the headlight wiring harnesses or try to code out the circuit fault messages…
 

GTI's

Drag Racing Champion
Location
MD
So it worked fine with the original headlight housing and does not do work with the aftermarket stuff. Still have the originals, instead of sand and polish do a sand and clear with a good 2K clear primer it will last longer.

Fwiw RT does not take kindly to people posting scans from fake tools so do not do it if you do not want to be banned.
 
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