LED Door Warning Lights - Review

[MC71]

           

                           LED Door Warning Lights       



 



I bought a pair Door Warning Lights from Bold-Sport.com after seeing them in other cars and had them fitted and coded by Eddie-NL. They sent the wrong wiring looms as they were way to short for their required purpose (meant for a 4 door and not my 2 door, my fault when ordering I imagine), not a problem for Ed though as he just made some other wiring looms the correct length and carried on!   



Product

I bought one pair of "LED Hyper White" Door Warning Lights for my 2 door car. Mine (the Hyper White's) came supplied with 2 LED panels, each one having 4 red LED's facing outwards and 3 white LED's facing down towards the ground. Also supplied with the Light units are the wiring loom to connect the units to the controller in the door. There are 3 versions of units available, from standard OEM W5W bulbs to LED Warm White units and the LED Hyper White units.


Door Warning Lights (as supplied by Bold-Sport)....



LED's inside the unit showing their configuration....



Door Warning Lights can be supplied with either Standard bulbs, LED Warm White or LED Hyper White....



LINK to the ones I bought.....

~~ Click here ~~



Why

The amount of light these give out really is incredible, really does make a very noticeable difference. In my opinion some form of door warning lights should be fitted as standard in every car as it not only aids safety (cars/bikes etc travelling from behind you can see that the is door open) and convenience (helps prevent you stepping into a puddle and other nasties etc) and of course it lights the area around the door. 



Price (as of September 2012)

LED's

For 1 pair (for a 2 door car)   £40.95  inc P+P via the cheapest shipping method available.
For 2 pairs (for a 4 door car) £70.52 inc P+P (prices exclude fitting)

Standard W5W Bulbs

For 1 pair   £25.18 inc P+P
For 2 pairs £40.93 inc P+P




Fitting/Installation Guides

Removing Door Cards

Fist off, the door cards need to be removed. A comprehensive written guide on removing the door cards in below (and also a video for those that like their movies). It's not an easy thing if you've never done it before, these will help...

Written Giude.....

~~ Click here ~~


Video Guide.....

[ Invalid YouTube link ]


Wiring/Installation

For the wiring for the OEM and LED Door Warning Light's fitting/installation there some good DIY "how to" guide about, I've included just 2. First one is from my-GTI.com and the second is from r32oc.com.

~~ Click here ~~

~~ Click here ~~

And also information on the different Generations of door controllers (GEN 2 Min K, GEN 2 Max L and GEN 3 M N and Q) which will come in handy when seeing what's what and which wire goes in which position.

~~ Click here ~~



Alternatives

OEM Door warning lights and Connector Housing can be bought from the dealer and come preinstalled with a standard W5W bulb in the unit I believe. A few other bits (repair wires etc) are needed and all told its cheaper than the kit i bought. I thought about going this route and fitting these myself but being a complete muptard when it comes to this sort of thing I left it to the professionals to fit.

Part numbers for the OEM parts required...

OEM Door Warning Light unit X2.   1K0 947 411A
Connector Housing X2.                    1J0 971 972
Repair Wire.                                       000 979 019                           
Cloth Wiring Loom Tape.                 000 979 950   



OEM Door Warnig Light's and Connector housing....



OEM Door Warning Lights, Mk6 GTI...




Or for the "bling" look you can have LED Door LOGO Projector Lights instead. These will need a hole drilling into the button of the doorcard into which the unit is screwed and wired into the controller and coded in the same way as normal Door Warning Lights. These units can be bought from all over the interweb for £10-£30ish, example from eBay (China) being...

~~ Click here ~~

LED Door LOGO Projector Lights.......







Or stick with the OEM Reflectors (no additional cost or effort required) part number 1K0 947 419 A



Images of LED Hyper White's

Daytime....



NIGHTTIME....






You get a much better idea of the light output from the Door Warning Lights in the pictures (below) taken inside a carpark.

Same LED Hyper White's on a 5 door Mk6 GTI...








Conclusion

These may not be to everyone's taste, mine are bright but even upgrading to the OEM Door Warning Lights with a standard W5W bulb is far better than no illumination at all. It's a fairly cheap and easy to fit mini mod that makes a big difference to you, your passengers and other road users and pedestrians.

 

[phil1975]

  Muptard 

Not heard that before!

Good comprehensive write up martin

[MC71]

^^^^ Cheers bud! 

[Tortaruga]

Cheers MC, great review.

Nice and subtle, my kind of mod!

[monte]

Awesome Martin, Top Review mate 

[MC71]

Cheers MC, great review.

Nice and subtle, my kind of mod!

Awesome Martin, Top Review mate  

Thanks chaps!  

Carlo, i bought the VW Logo Projector units but after showing my good lady wife what they look like at night time they are now in a box in the garage and that's where they will be staying!

 

[monte]

Cheers MC, great review.

Nice and subtle, my kind of mod!

Awesome Martin, Top Review mate 

Thanks chaps! 

Carlo, i bought the VW Logo Projector units but after showing my good lady wife what they look like at night time that's where they will be staying!

 

I know what you mean mate….and tbh I think ill be getting those hyper white door lights at some point. 

[scottm72]

Cheers MC, great review.

Nice and subtle, my kind of mod!

Awesome Martin, Top Review mate  

Thanks chaps!  

Carlo, i bought the VW Logo Projector units but after showing my good lady wife what they look like at night time they are now in a box in the garage and that's where they will be staying!

 

did she think the looked tacky ? I was thinking that but wasn't sure.
can I fit these led door lights myself or does it need someone who knows what they are doing, also do they need coded ?

[marko]

they need coding scott...
easy done and a handy diy job for any fella to do...i done the 2 rears and changed to chrome switches at the same time..now i just need a couplke of hrs to get the front done

i would recommend getting a few new panel clips as well as they are quite hard to get the door panels off without snapping a few

 

[scottm72]

yeah I asked the question about the coding and didn't realise it was in the main review 
just bought a set with as you say some panel clips
look a good mod
I don't have vcds but I am getting the chrome switches delivered and will get these coded at same time when I have all parts together.
although I cant code them is it just plug and play for me to do before I find someone to do the coding so to not need to pay someone for the actual fitting of them to kep my costs down.
link to buy http://www.bold-sport.com/store/index.php?route=checkout/cart
ok 28 pins is overkill but so cheap lol and knowing my luck all will break

[marko]

lol...
i got 20 just incase and broke 2 on each rear door.so plenty spare!!

[RetroRaz]

these look awesome!

is it just a plug and play and coding with vcds?

[marko]

you need to insert 2 wires into the door module in the allocated holes and code with vcds....easy job
plus just google for info
 

[RetroRaz]

you need to insert 2 wires into the door module in the allocated holes and code with vcds....easy job
plus just google for info
 

thanks mate 

found a few good links to it. looks easy.

what about if you was to get these OEM ones and put LED bulbs in them? Would that work the same way?

http://www.my-gti.com/2150/adding-door-warning-lights-to-the-volkswagen-golf-and-jetta-front

[marko]

that will be fine mate!!