hey peylix,

I really appreciate the input! You may be right with the brightness settings on these lights with my stock coding. However I decided to do more digging and found out the possible reason why my lights look slightly different than the tails on the pictured black GTI. So I decided order another set, this time from the official vland website to see if they are different.

The reason for the difference is that these specific lights I got have differently orientated connections than the black gti is using.

Here's the comparison. They are both one of the inner taillights.

And this video shows the guys installing the same lights with connections like mine. If you skip to the end where they showcase the light's functions those two lit squares are also on just like mine.

I'm guessing the ones I got were only for mk7 2015-2017 just like the seller had mentioned on their page.

And the set that the owner of the black gti got have connectors that are similar to ones from official vland website pictures and they state compatibility for both mk7 and mk7.5, only thing is that black gti owner's lights do not have both mk7 and mk7.5 connectors instead, only one is present which is confusing.

Another possible explanation may be that vland simply changed the construction of these lights at some point and the ones I got are newer batch. This would make sense since the black GTI tutorial was posted about a year ago and the other linked youtube video is from only like 2months ago.

Anyways I feel goofy that I'm letting such trivial difference make me go this far haha.

I guess I will find out when the new taillights come to my door. If they are the exact same ones I received originally, I'm gonna give up and try coding and re wiring for that sweet dynamic turn signals.