Club 80-90 Forums

Why did VW think it was a good idea to use a yellow bulb for the high beam dash warning light instead of a blue one ?
I owned a 1984 Golf van which had the same yellow bulb, but all other VW's we have owned have all had blue. Is it that in the early 80's were they experimenting ?
Im sure some bright spark will know the answer.I know its sad but I quite like the yellow.

Probably that you couldn't get blue LEDs in the early 80s so they used yellow , but later they got round it with a mini bulb and a little blue lens.

Mark

Mines blue.. is it a late model early model difference?

Thats what I presume, cannot think of any other reason. It seems too much of a coincidence that the 2 VW's I owned/produced in the early 80's, one a 1984 (Golf Van) and 1983 (camper) both had yellow lights. All other VW's owned have had the usual blue light?!

As pocolow rightly says, blue was the holy grail of the LED world in the 70s/80s. Red was the first colour available, followed by yellow but without the blue, white was a long way off. Once blue was cracked, the rest was history and it spawned all kinds of technology.

I swapped my brocken early dashpod with yellow warning for another early one with a blue warning

My old vans original dashpod had a little blue rubber sheath (ooer ) over the bulb, my current van which is the same year just has the yellow bulb, the late pod which I hacked to fit the early loom has a blue light but I've not had it apart to see if its a blue bulb or a cover on a yellow one.

Worth noting thats its very difficult to get blue LEDs that don't blind you. Blue light travels the furthest (why emergency services use blue lights) so if you swap for an LED you may need to dip it in black paint (I did) or increase the value of the resistor to get it right.