Polo 6R/6C rear clusters sorted, but what about the front?

[RUM4MO]

First, I think that the colour of the mask on the end of these Halogen bulbs is more a fashion thing, they started off being black, fancy version were light grey/silver and some OEM as you have discovered are mid grey - their colour will dictate what the lights look like when switched off, obviously the light grey/sliver ones are almost invisible, the black finish was essential at the beginning of when Halogen bulbs appeared, as without that black finish, none of your friends knew that you had Halogens fitted?

Trolley jacks and lifting cars up in general, I've always been quite happy working under a car on ramps, until my first car, wife's 2002 Polo, broke a front spring while reversing out of the garage, that spring broke at half height, so when we gone in to go to a New Years Day concert, as our driveway is on a slope, the engine under cover just acted as a gravel scoop - the car was sitting that low - game over everyone got out drove car back into garage and jumped into the Passat. Now, if that had happened while I was under a car up on ramps, I think that I'd be slightly squashed, though probably not killed - since then, I've had a rethink about using ramps - okay I was under wife's Polo yesterday to get the engine under cover off, but that was me trusting the 2 year old springs to be okay!

I probably use the trolley jacks (2 of the same type really one Sealey and the other Clarke) when I am swopping the wheels over at October and May Summer<>Winter, if I am cleaning the brakes at the same time, I'll stuff some blocks of wood under the car as well. If I'm being really committed and changing the brake fluid, I'll get the cars up one side at a time onto to Jackpoint Jackstands, and yes I bought 2 pairs of them so I can get any of my cars up onto them quite quickly. These jackstands were bought to get my 2011 Audi S4 up in the air as it only has the workshop/emergency jacking points, so you need to be creative and buy something like these jackstands which allow you to lift the car at these points, insert the other part of the jackstands and drop the car back down so that it is still resting on these jacking points. Almost complete car is covered underneath with a plastic under cover so no other options for placing jacks etc.

Audi TT Jacking Point Protectors - I think that I bought them from VW if not it would have been Audi, but you could try VW first, they come in two parts, Audi TT jacking points protectors 8N0 803 855 + 8N0 805 583 – 4off each £25.73 (August 2015 prices inc VAT.) Maybe Google "Audi jacking point protectors" and you can see if they seem like a good idea for you? I will need to slap on a few coats of Hammerite to my wife's Polo as, as you said, the workshop lifts tend to crush the paint a bit - I added some wood and thick rubber to the jackstands that I bought - to spread the load and protect the car.

Edit:- I just worked on the headlight out in the garage, carefully placing it down on my crappy but free Screwfix kneeling mat, which is little more than a bit of Armaflex insulation, but it was free and the field mice might enjoy it better than my proper more dense mats for working under cars!

Bad news about these fragile front trims though, I really did mean to record what the part number was, but in the end forgot!

I also bought a warning triangle that fits into the space inside the "boot", ebay car breaker tend to sell them:- Audi Q5 Warning Triangle 8K0 860 251 – 1off £12.99

[veteran]

Unless you've already done so, it's worth downloading the pdf's of Hella and Philips Automotive Lighting from their respective websites. Interestingly, what you'll discover by doing so is that Hella's automotive manufacturing plant is situated in Uitenhage, SA, where the RHD Polos are made. Hella certainly make the actual headlight unit (the housing) but in general VW doesn't fit their bulbs.

Toshiba wedge clears or ambers (both 5W and 21W are required, incidentally) are conspicuous by their absences from highstreet retailers and e-retailers in the UK. If the Toshiba ones can be ordered from VW dealers by end-customers, I guess that VW UK must especially buy them in from Japan, or wherever in the world they're actually made. Maybe there are Osram equivalents, but I've yet to find any.

Halfords might well be a source of a good many of the bulbs used on the 6C/6R Polos, but having been studying the details found on the various bulbs I've accessed on my 6C Match Edition of late, I've gained the distinct impression that, wherever possible, VW has fitted longlife bulbs. I'm not convinced that the Halfords ones could necessarily be categorised as heavy-duty or longlife. Even the GE bulbs that Halfords currently sell may not be LL types; there's nothing on their packagings that says they are. So, in some cases, especially where the bulb's duty cycle is going to be large, it might in the end pay to get them from the VW dealer. And BTW, I'm not convinced that longevity is just about duty cycle. Most filament-based bulbs fail when the supply suddenly changes from 0v to 12v. Flasher units are usually designed to mitigate this to a degree by not fully turning off the volts during repeated flashes. But, all the same, the filament's still being repeatedly thermo-mechanically shocked.

As for the 21W daytime running lights now fitted to the latest 6C/6Rs, they seem to be ripe for changing from wedge filament to LED types. Anyone done that yet? Believe me, you wouldn't want to take apart that grille-escutcheon and lens unit too many times, to keep changing the filament ones!

[RUM4MO]

I'm lucky as cars with LED head lights and maybe those with HID, have LED DRLs in the headlight clusters.

I take your point about Longlife bulbs, though I was working on the presumption that my spare bulb kit would be used to replace a bulb "on the road" and after the initial single failure, I normally replace the same bulb on the other side, which might be an Irish way of looking at things, so I would buy 2 new bulbs and fit the same on both sides and recover the spare bulb for placing back into the spares kit. In our case, maybe by that time either some of these wedge bulbs will be more popular and/or LED equivalent will have arrived giving all the extended life that the current one promise to give.

Edit:- On the subject of Longlife bulbs, I just hope that the amber coatings last as long as the elements as in the past as I've said it is only the coating that fails on these bulbs, well for me anyway, I've never had an amber bulb fail due to filament failure. Another point could be that these bulbs last for a long time - although that does not negate the need to carry a spares kit of bulbs! I've discovered, in my search for a source of a spare front indicator bulb for my 2011 Audi S4, that most if not all being offered are made by Philips and most outlets do not stock them, they get ordered in when you request one, which makes me hope that they are reliable in service. BTW these bulbs in the front of my S4 seem only to get used by Audi, BMW and M-B, and cost over £20!

[veteran]

Just something further to add about the headlight unit. I found that, when I finally got mine out and was able to have a really careful look at it, there were a total of four vent holes in the rear of the unit, but only two of them required the angled, tubular grommets. The other holes had blank ends. However, I did find a further one which had been vented (its knockout poked out). It was situated on the inner side of the headlight unit, near its rear edge, at the bottom. Without the headlight out and looking extremely carefully into the vent hole, you just wouldn't realise it was there. That one didn't have a grommet over it, but I guess that was because the vent, although at a low position, was pointing down. I suspect the VW designers figured that, because of that, water splashes wouldn't get in.