where can i get one of the little blue bulbs that show when your main beam is on? and is it easy to fit to a mk3 polo?
Your LED is highly unlikely to be blown. This light shares a fuse with the left hand headlight main beam - this fuse is probably the problem. Check it first. Oli.
well it's not the fuse so it must be the damned thing itself. looks like i'll have to take the dash to bits then - is this easy enough?
Check the fuse for both sides. If it really is the LED then you will need to take the instruments out and get the LED out of the cluster - and I'm not sure how you do this last bit. Sorry. Oli.
yeah checked all the fuses while i was looking, all of them are fine and the main beams are working fine anyway. it's not my car so i haven't had a chance to look at how to dismantle the dash yet, i'll be back here if i have problems!
Diggerbicket, Hmmm. The dashboard LED's are a complex thing. VW switched from lights (filament bulbs) to LED's in about 1984, and didn't always make them very well. It could be the LED, or a bad connection. To be honest, LED technology is so robust I would doubt it is gone (notwithstanding the experience of PigBladder.) All the best either way. Oli.
Not true. Mk3 Golfs use filament bulbs for all the instrument panel. Untile about 1998, blue LEDs were too expensive, so the Mk2 golf uses a filament bulb for the blue lights. The red ones are LEDs. Simon.
Theothersimon, I will bow to your deferential knowledge - and am slightly surprised! I don't know what I said from 1st hand knowledge, but was told it by a reliable source ... but I am sure you are right ... They went from yellow lights to blue ones for main beam (I think that the main beam light on my Mk1 is yellow, and the ones from passats of the same vintage were yellow as well I think) and these yellow ones were bulbs not LED's (I thought). Then the blue ones came along, and these were LED's. But this was only my understanding, which is now proved to be wrong ... Oli.
my blue light went too, easy but bloody fiddly to fix take the steering wheel off, take all the dash inserts out inlcuding the switches, take the stereo out (no need to unplug so long as there's some play), take the heater control unit out, take the drivers side knee bar off. now you can get the dash out by undoing about 7 screws two more screws and the clocks unit is free, reach behind it and disconnect the speedo cable. unplug the connector(s) at the bottom of the unit and it comes out unscrew the ten screws on the back of the unit, carefully remove some of the printed circuit so the back on the unit can be folded back, replace the faulty bulb/LED and there you go, now put it all back together again!! the trickiest bit is getting the speedo cable connected again, make sure to test the clocks before putting in all back together again also the LEDs have one slightly bent leg, this fits the slot hole rather than the round hole: LEDs only work one way round good luck
Hey, can I swap my Mk2 dash illuminator lights (top of the instrument panel for blue LED type things?
thanks for all the info guys drew21 - sounds like you're describing a mk2 golf, just want to clarify it's the same for a mk3 polo? i knew it was a bulb (that's why it says bulb in the thread title!) so it won't matter which way it goes in. blue LEDs were immensely more expensive than any other colour when these cars were produced so they used a bulb with a blue cap instead
er yes a mk2 golf. good spot, perhaps this is a good game?? someone describes what they did and everyone guesses which VW they've got, or perhaps not
Fabbo game! You could play by colour instead of by what you did. For instance, I've got a green one and a red one. What Golfs do I have? (Hint. Lhasa and Tornado.) Oli.
