Hi!
I have small problem with X-Type 2004 driving lights...

Right side light is dimmer than left side. I have tried several things to improve the light at right side, but no luck...

Here are the things what have I done so far:
- changed +50% More Light -bulb
- changed +90% More Light -bulb
- gave power straight from battery to right side bulb (first removed the original wire, after that turned ignition On and compared lights)
- cleaned the connectors with sandpaper and sprayed WD-40 to the connector

All of those, and still the right side light is dimmer than left side. I believe that the projectors mirror-surface is whether almost broken or dirty.

The last thing what I haven't tried is that put 100W H1 to right side... The question is, will the projector melt, or will it resist the heat from 100W bulb... ? The projectors top case is metal, but is it plastic inside? I will use the 100W only at winter, not at summer.

And the second question is, if somehow I can get my hands on projector from left side, can I install it to right side?

 

juge, please don't install the 100W bulbs into your headlights. The housings I am sure are capable of handling the power, but the wiring and especially the bulb connectors are not capable. So, if you do install the higher wattage bulbs, you will get it to light up, but you are going to turn those wires and connectors into heating elements and the insulation is going to melt off of the wiring. You can imagine the heartache at that point.

As for testing your issue, I would recommend checking the ground wire for proper connection. It sounds like to me you have a bad ground connection. THis is causing some of the power going to the headlight to be dropped where the ground wire comes in contact with the body. You can verify this by using a multimeter and measuring from the ground wire on the bulb to the body of the vehicle. Anything over 0.5 VDC is a sign of a bad ground. You can also verify that you are getting a good power signal by first measuring across the battery to get your reference voltage and then measuring from the headlight positive wire to ground. The difference between these two measurements should be less than 0.5 VDC. If you have more than 0.5 VDC, you have a high resistance connection in that wire.

As for switching the headlight housings side to side, the plugs will work, but the lights will not fit into the body of the car. So, if you are just doing a temporary check, go for it. If you are looking to make it more of a permanent fix, not going to work. Please note that to switch the headlight assemblies from side to side, you are going to need to remove the front bumper cover. Not a hard job, but takes about 30 minutes of undoing about 15 bolts to get it off. If you need more info on this, let me know.

 

Hey juge sorry to hear about your lighting probs...the x type isn't the best even when stock I think most will agree.
Great advice I'm sure from Thermo as always. Please believe me Thermo when I say I don't mean to contradict as I'm sure you're pretty much always on the money....but...
As far as the 100w bulbs go, I replaced all mine with them in my x type as the lighting was so poor and had them in for a year before I sold it with absolutely no problems.
I currently have my main beams, dipped lights and fogs all on 80w / 100w on my A6 and have had for 4 months to date with no probs, just really bright usable light.
To be honest though I'd say an HID kit was deffo the way to go...check out the many many posts that have been covered with this issue in the x type quick faq links juge.

 

Jim, like I tried to point out in my post, it may not fail immediately, but over time it will lead to issues. I've seen a few Jags that have had wiring that have seen too much heat. Maybe you had some extra air flow in the area or who knows.

But, like you say, upgrading to HID bulbs will be a much better way to go as you will get 3 times the light that you can from standard halogen bulbs (3300 lumen from 4300K bulbs vice the 1300 lumens from halogen bulbs).

 

Co sign! Best way to get more light is HID for both main & fog lamps.

 

I have been thinking that HID kit, but the only thing is that it is illegal here in Finland to install aftermarket HID kit to replace normal halgen bulbs. Well, I don't think that police will stop you in traffic just to check do you have legal HID system or not. But the MOT, which needs to go through every year. You have to change the HID bulbs to halogen, otherwise you'll get "Failed" stamp... If the MOT time in our car wasn't at winter time, that is quite easy, but it is, and is it not the best possible time to start changing bulbs back and forth...

To get that kind of installation legal, first you have to buy HID housings and self-leveling system. And install them. And that cost's strawberries...

But... at last week I investigated the light problem. Found out that the "system" which connects earth and +12V to H1 bulb was so hot, that I burned my finger on it and the lights haven't been on more than 20mins... So I thought that there must be some kind of bad connection, it can't be that hot. I bought new connectors and removed the old one, little bit new wire and few connectors. Also I made from swab and Q-tip cleaning tool, moistured the swab with laptop screen cleaning liquid and tried to clean the housing from inside. Those two improved the light a bit, but not as much as I would hope.

Also I measured the readings from wires and battery, and they were all good.

The second thing which I was thinking to do is to install normal relay to both sides. Like installing extra high beams: +12V from battery, ground and wake-up power from car original wires.

I have heard that no carmaker install any kind of relays to driving lights, and self-installed relays decreases the resistanse of original wires, and improves light power because bulb gets its power straight from battery.

From that I get to one question: does that kind of installation harm cars electrics...?

 

juge, Jag is one exception to a car manufacturer that installs a relay for the normal driving lights (aka low beams). So, installing another relay in this wire isn't going to help much. What will help the situation is upgrading the wiring to something bigger than what Jag has in there as that wiring is on the small side, resulting in power loss in the wire. If you think that the wiring size is in question, there is an easy check that you can do. What you will need to do is get a multimeter with semi long leads. Then what you will need to do is connect the red lead to the positive of the battery and the black lead to the positive of your load (make sure the load is energized and if it has multiple settings, it is on the one that pulls the most power). Now, look at the multimeter. Does it read over 1.000 VDC? If no, then you have good contacts in that circuit and the wiring is of proper size. If you are over 1.000 VDC, then you have too small of wiring for the current being drawn or you have a high resistance contact in that wire.

As for installing relays to supply power to various loads, if anything, you are going to help the factory wiring as you will be pulling part of the load off of that wiring. So, what you did is a good thing other than the wiring already having a relay in line from the factory.