I recently bought a 2001 A4 1.8T Quattro. One of my bulbs already burnt out, can I buy just H7 bulbs and fit them in or do I need a conversion kit for these bulbs. This car is off a lease so I'm pretty sure they didn't do any mod's to it, are the headlights in my car considered projectors or HID'S? Please this whole topic is confusing me for some reason with the E-codes, and HID's, and projectors. Let me know what I have to do to get that crisp look of the hyper white or blue headlights, I think that really makes the car stand out as its coming towards you on the road. Thanks.

 

Well first you need to figure out if you have halogen or xenon (HID) lighting. Xenon and High intensity Discharge (HID) are synnonymous words. Open your headlights on the back, and look to see if you have normal bulbs or if you have xenon (which will have a larger connector inside) Xenon will have a ballast underneath too which is like a transformer.

If you have halogen headlights then you will need to buy H7 bulbs to replace. You can also tell if you have halogen by the yellow color. Also if you have Xenon/HID the lights take a few seconds to warm up when you turn them on and will be blue. They gradually fade in as they warm up.

Ecodes are standard European headlights which produce a stark cutoff beam pattern, whereas US DOT headlights are fuzzy and gradually cutoff. Ecodes have no yellow/amber insert on the sides like N. American lights.

Every car A4 after 1999.5 had projectors whether they were DOT or Ecodes. If you look at your low beams they look like a magnifying glass. That is the projector. The high beam light is called a reflector.

 

Thanks that was helpful. Now if I have normal connections and not the bigger ones or the balast that you described, I'm probably going to need the conversion kit just to install $40 bulbs???

 

If the bulbs are H7, then no modifications are needed. One thing about cheap-o halogen "xenon" imitation bulbs is they tend to burn out faster than quality bulbs. They also are not as bright as they loose some light with the blue coating on them.

If the bulbs are D2S, then yes modifications are needed.