BHPian Tony2298 recently shared this with other enthusiasts:Festival of lights with my i20Hi all, As the festive season has started in full swing, decided to gift my fancy ride some nice goodies as a token of love. If the title sounds familiar, it’s because almost exactly one year ago, I gifted a hell lot of stuff to my ever dependable and reliable workhorse; you can read more about it here if you haven’t.LightsAs much as I love my i20 and really love driving it, I used to avoid taking it during night drives because of the abysmal performance of the headlights. First of all, I don’t know why Hyundai skimped on the fog lights with the Asta(O) and reserved it for N Line models only, thereby creating a serious blind spot, which terrified the hell out of me even on city roads. Secondly, the actual headlight unit itself is very weak and absolutely non-roadworthy, the low beams barely illuminated the road ahead and high beams, well, they were nonexistent and before anyone says, I’ve got a perfect 6/6 vision without any pathology in my eyes and it’s the first time I felt so helpless at night while driving the i20. The stock lights were absolutely pathetic and non roadworthy, mind you this is high beams! Hence, gave a serious thought about it, researched this topic and decided to replace the headlight reflectors with aftermarket projector lasers. Yes, they cost a bomb and opening factory-packed lights and retrofitting them with something else isn’t the wisest thing to do but Hyundai didn’t leave me with any other option because even if I doubled my budget and had gotten a Creta or even the new-gen Tucson (which costs 4X the i20), I still would’ve gotten trashy lights only. Therefore, got in touch with a few people doing this job and zeroed in on one of them, experimented with my Tucson’s fog lights upgrade and they did an amazing job with those and therefore gave them my i20 as well for getting the light upgrades done. The shop owner, due to my loyalty and a bit of persuasion, gave me an amazing offer if I also happened to retrofit laser projectors for the foglamps by getting specific brackets for the i20, replacing the blanks. The deal was too good to refuse and hence gave them a green light for the same. The entire process was quite a tedious one, as removal of main lights, separating the reflectors and bolting on individual projectors in place involves a lot of time and effort but I could guarantee you that the people did quite an amazing job for what is essentially an aftermarket job and refitted the lamps with perfect alignment. Even the auto configuration didn’t have any issues and the different modes work perfectly alright. Continuing on, even the foglights were installed professionally without any wire cutting or splicing, separate wiring harness and relays were introduced. The original blanks were removed and a custom bracket was installed by removing the bumper assembly, then the foglights, which happen to be 160W 3″ BiFocals with low beam and high beam were installed. Now, separate switches could’ve been used too for the foglights, however, the i20 just doesn’t have any blank switches to retrofit one and I just didn’t have the heart to drill cutouts in the dashboard for the switches, hence simply connected it to the main light operation switch and they ensured original wiring was NOT TAMPEREDwith at all. Now the configuration is such, that in Auto mode, whenever the surroundings are dim, the low beams of both fog lights and head lights switch on(ideal for normal highway cruising), switching on the parking lights gets only the parking lights and fog lights in low beam to action(perfect for town usage) and it’s only when you switch on the high beams, you’ll see a Diwali show (perfect for pitch dark expressways and forest roads). The projectors for the headlamps, 3units of each were installed in one light, totalling to 6 for both the lights The bifocal laser projectors for the foglights Parking lights Low beams High beams Parking lights are sufficient for city usage The low beams are very strong and one you’ll be on 80% of the times while on highways With the high beams, you’ll be celebrating Diwali in front of you!HornsIf something is even more essential than lights for driving safely on Indian roads, it’s the horns. Now, I’m all against noise pollution but sometimes, a blaring horn is the only way out while manoeuvring through our nasty traffic. Now, let me tell you a bit of details about horns in Hyundai cars from the erstwhile cars to current gen models. Earlier, Hyundai used to give single disc horns for small budget cars like the Eon, Santro etc, dual disc setup cars for cars like Grand i10, Xcent, Elite i20 etc, a more powerful version of that in sedans like Verna & Elantra, while the sweet sounding wind tone ones were reserved only for SUVs, the Creta & Tucson. However, Hyundai, I guess, to reduce logistic costs decided to give the same horns for all of their cars, starting from i10 Nios to Tucson, the only difference being that the lesser cars get only a low pitched one and the dual tone is reserved for premium models only. Now the single horn of Hyundai cars will unanimously be the most hated horns by all of us. The sound is terrible, not just for the outsiders but also for the one sitting inside the car. It used to irk me so much that I absolutely refrained from using horns as I just couldn’t live with that sound. Now, the solution to my problems can be provided by two methods. First, the simpler one, get rid of the stock horns and get aftermarket dual wind tone ones from Roots, Hella or any other brand but maybe it’s just me, I find the Creta’s wind tone setup unmatched in terms of sound, the amplitude, pitch etc is so damn perfect that IMO is even better than some European cars’ wind tone. Hence decided to fit those only. Now the thing with Hyundai horns is the fact that they’re connected via couplers, unlike other cars which use thimbles. Now, with the cars fitted with a single horn only, there’s a single coupler only and to install a second coupler, you need to shred off some wires which can potentially void the warranty and I absolutely didn’t want this thing to happen, which was the reason why I paid so much attention when the lights were installed in the first place. Looked up for some solution to these problems and the solution came from a fellow BHPian himself, KarDIY who also happens to be on YouTube. He demonstrated how original dual horns can be retrofitted by using a splitter dual coupler kit. Interested, I immediately contacted him, however, he responded that he was busy and might take some time to arrange that kit. Disheartened, I tried to source the couplers from somewhere else and thankfully, another YouTuber who goes by the name of TurboHouseYT also demonstrated the same coupler kit in his videos, contacted him and he shipped me the kit the next day itself and I received the package within 3 days itself! A big shout-out to him for making my life so much better! So, when the bumper got off, requested the mechanics to fit the horns as well and asked them to take special care of the positioning to ensure water doesn’t enter the horn and ruin it, as I really LOVE the sound of these horns. Once the horns were fitted which was essentially a plug-and-play type job, applied the horn and man, does the horn sound delectable. I know I’m being repetitive but I’m just a fan of these horns and the very reason why I love cars like Creta/Seltos, the sound of the horn is simply unmatched! Recommend all owners of i10 Nios, i20, Aura, Exter, Venue etc to consider this little upgrade and I guarantee your car will automatically feel 2-3 notches more upmarket.TidBitsNow the i20 looks beautiful, be it on the outside or inside. The rear with those Z shaped taillamps look so cool during night but what really spoils the look are the lame yellow halogen bulbs for license plates and reverse lights. I had a similar complaint with my Tucson, hence changed all of these to Blaupunkt cool white LEDs. The look feels so complete now, just the way I want! Similar story on the inside, the cool blue backlighting and ambient lighting with the huge twin screens look so damn premium during night but those dome lights are again poor yellow bulbs ruined the entire ambience of the interiors, changed these to Blaupunkt LEDs as well and now the car feels so complete in and out. So, yeah, those were some small gifts to my beloved i20 and I’ve to say, both of us can’t be happier as I’ll be finally able to undertake some long cross-country road trips with her as well! All the new stuff was installed in my i20. Seeing all of them together made me feel so excited, similar to what I felt when I was a kid when I saw the packets of all the firecrackers bought during Diwali! Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.
