Mook told me to get a GTI so I did

[Kensington]

[MENTION=1983]Outlaw[/MENTION] [MENTION=102]DanJoy[/MENTION]

Outlaw, I know you had the S, so I assume you didn't have the HID's. Dan, not sure if you had HID's...but one thing that kind of irks me is the LED fog lights being so white, and the halogen low beams, being well, the standard yellow.

I see the yellow film things for the fogs, which I do like, but I still think would look bad with the standard halogen bulbs. I would never do HID's in scatter housings, so I think my only option would be a set of Silverstar (or like bulbs).

You guys have any other opinions or options?

 

[Dan00Hawk]

I did LED's from deAutoLED for my halogens. The cutoff is like stock (the diodes match the location where the halogen bulb filament is, so the pattern is the same), and the light output is great. I know LED's or HID's in halogen housing get a bad rep, and they should for all the ones out there that aren't designed properly. But there really ARE led and HID bulbs that mimic the light pattern precisely.

You can check mine out if you want.

They are also 20% off right now.
https://forums.vwvortex.com/showthr...reflector-housing-without-any-wires-or-coding!


This thread has my pictures of the "wrong" bulbs that had a terrible cutoff, and then the "right" bulbs with the proper cutoff. It's actually a great example of how the wrong bulbs do create terrible glare for oncoming drivers, but that the right bulbs won't do so. I removed my lights to install them, but apparently they can be installed without doing so.

https://forums.vwvortex.com/showthr...nge-your-boring-halogens-into-LEDs-in-seconds!

 

[DanJ]

Deautokey is good. I have the lighting package but have used them for LED taillight bulbs and whatnot. The only bad thing I’ve heard about putting the yellow film over the LED fogs is the output is kind of green.

 

[Kensington]

I did LED's from deAutoLED for my halogens. The cutoff is like stock (the diodes match the location where the halogen bulb filament is, so the pattern is the same), and the light output is great. I know LED's or HID's in halogen housing get a bad rep, and they should for all the ones out there that aren't designed properly. But there really ARE led and HID bulbs that mimic the light pattern precisely.

You can check mine out if you want.

They are also 20% off right now.
https://forums.vwvortex.com/showthr...reflector-housing-without-any-wires-or-coding!


This thread has my pictures of the "wrong" bulbs that had a terrible cutoff, and then the "right" bulbs with the proper cutoff. It's actually a great example of how the wrong bulbs do create terrible glare for oncoming drivers, but that the right bulbs won't do so. I removed my lights to install them, but apparently they can be installed without doing so.

https://forums.vwvortex.com/showthr...nge-your-boring-halogens-into-LEDs-in-seconds!

I'll have to keep the link handy. These sounds promising! Thanks!

Deautokey is good. I have the lighting package but have used them for LED taillight bulbs and whatnot. The only bad thing I’ve heard about putting the yellow film over the LED fogs is the output is kind of green.

I did read that too...I read that some guys had doubled up the film which helps, but starts to diminish light output. But I guess I wouldn't really need the fogs to do a ton of actual lighting, it's more for aesthetics

 

[DanJ]

I like using the fogs on dark country roads. I feel like they light up the shoulders a bit more so I could possibly see deer earlier.

 

[Kensington]

I haven't done a ton of night driving yet, so maybe I'll hold off on everything until I can figure out what deficiencies there are

 

[Outlaw]

[MENTION=1983]Outlaw[/MENTION] [MENTION=102]DanJoy[/MENTION]

Outlaw, I know you had the S, so I assume you didn't have the HID's. Dan, not sure if you had HID's...but one thing that kind of irks me is the LED fog lights being so white, and the halogen low beams, being well, the standard yellow.

I see the yellow film things for the fogs, which I do like, but I still think would look bad with the standard halogen bulbs. I would never do HID's in scatter housings, so I think my only option would be a set of Silverstar (or like bulbs).

You guys have any other opinions or options?

I’d track down a set of the projector housings, or, like you said switch to a silver star ultra bulb or equivalent. I didn’t have fogs on my car, it was literally a base as base can get S trim peasant edition.

 

[Outlaw]

I like using the fogs on dark country roads. I feel like they light up the shoulders a bit more so I could possibly see deer earlier.

I have 12000 lumen LED fogs on my truck for this exact reason. They’re brighter than my headlights and have a damn near 180 degree pattern for seeing animals and shit at night.

 

[Kensington]

Winter wheels and tires and new tint 35/25, plus had some of the scratches cleaned up. Looks much better than it did when I bought it

 

[Mook]

Love it

 

[Kensington]

Yeah, the tint really rounds it out.

One weird issue I have been having is an intermittent vibration that feels like a wheel balance issue (certain speeds vibration, no matter gear, goes away above and below comes back at higher speeds). Got the wheels/tires balanced, but it really just shifted the speeds, but after letting it sit over Thanksgiving break, there has been no vibration...It was pretty bad before, to the point I was gonna take off the wheel and check the hub bore diameters... Outlaw DanJoy Dan00Hawk thoughts?

 

[Kensington]

Well and also Mook

 

[Dan00Hawk]

I've moved wheels around and swapped summer winter sets when trying to diagnose noises and vibrations. It's a bit time consuming, but it can help you determine if it's something related to the wheel/tire, or if it's something else like an axle.

I just put my snow tires (215/45/18) on my stock Austins. I'm actually eager for snow now... LOL Yours looks good with the tint. What size you running with your new winter setup?

 

[Kensington]

I THINK 225 45 17's, could be 215 or 205 50's, but I don't think so, would have to go out and look.

There's not too much playing around with the tires, because it looks like they were never rotated, and there's a good 3/32 difference in size between the front and back. I mean, I COULD have them all taken off, unmounted, and rebalanced, but that seems like a big to do.

 

[Kensington]

Aahhhhh I think I figured it out....it sounds like I need hub rings...Now I need to figure out the center bore size of these junk ass Moda wheels.

 

[EmersonHart13]

Oh yeah you want rings for sure.

Looking good

 

[DanJ]

Hub centric rings was my guess. Where’d you get them? Discount tire provided me with rings when I bought my wheels there so it worked out. Your hubs are 57.1mm so you just need a whatever your wheels are to 57.1 ring. My rings are actually off by a literal cunt hair (.3mm I think) but they tapped in with a rubber mallet no problem.

 

[Kensington]

From my research, they are Moda MD11 wheels...since I bought them second hand, I doubt they came with the rings. I contacted Tirerack, and it looks like they have 73mm centerbore. Got a set of these because I could not find a set of aluminum from 73-57.1

4 Hub Centric Rings 73.1mm to 57.1mm | Hubcentric Ring 73 - 57.1 Audi VW

Shop for the right size 57.1mm hub centric rings for your vehicle, a must have for aftermarket wheels and rims. Free shipping. Lug Nut Guys has many hubcentric ring options, like reinforced nylon, plastic and aluminum. Hub Ring 73-5710

lugnutguys.com

 

[DanJ]

I have plastic rings and haven’t had an issue. I’m not positive, but I believe they are just to get the wheel centered on the hub until you torque them to spec. These cars wheel torque specs are in newton meters but it converts to 87 ft/lbs. I’ve always torqued mine to 90ft/lbs and never had a problem.

 

[Kensington]

I have plastic rings and haven’t had an issue. I’m not positive, but I believe they are just to get the wheel centered on the hub until you torque them to spec. These cars wheel torque specs are in newton meters but it converts to 87 ft/lbs. I’ve always torqued mine to 90ft/lbs and never had a problem.

I think I torqued mine to 100, but not sure what DT did when they rebalanced them. I’ll do 90 when I get the rings in

 

[boostedguy05]

They put an impact on it and went to town.

 

[EmersonHart13]

Plastic from eBay crew checking in

 

[Kensington]

They put an impact on it and went to town.

DT throws an impact on it to get it to the ground and then usually torques them on the ground, at least that’s what they do at the one I go to

 

[Kensington]

Quick update: went to put the rings on, and found that the wheels already had plastic rings on them that listed 73. to 57.1...which would be the correct ones, in theory. The 73. bothered me though, thinking a number had worn off after the point, but all of them were like that. I decided to throw my set up, which I linked above. Threw them on, and no more shake. Huh. Did the old plastic rings wear out? Very odd. The old rings had little clips that held them in, whereas my new ones didn't have anything holding them in really, just fit snug but not overly tight. Torqued wheels to 90 ft/lbs and haven't had an issue since.

Car has been dead nuts reliable, not a single issue. Just rolled over 30K miles, and maybe this weekend I'll change the oil. Gets ~30mpg per tank with my normal commute, even now in winter. Sometimes I wish it were a little bigger, but then I remember, that it's just me now in it, basically 100% of the time, as they wife's CX-5 has taken over as our get around town together vehicle. I kind of wish this engine/transmission got into the last generation GLI...

 

[DanJ]

I wonder what’s wrong with mine. It’s manual and I average 28.5 calculated at the pump. I get better mileage with the same weight Liquimoly over the Castro’s the dealership uses. It doesn’t make sense but every time I switch to the Liquimoly my mileage goes up and then goes down on the oil the dealership uses. It’s only 1-3mpg but it’s consistent.