FACELIFT HEADLIGHT UPGRADE TO XENON

[X-5 3.0d]

Hi All

New to this, been thinking of upgradng my dull halogen projector lights to Xenon on an 04 plate facelift model. Anyone suggest how to do this? I have asked my local dealer how much they would charge to supply and fit genuine ones but as usual they want a packet or as in the words of the parts guy "Not much change of a grand"!

I have looked into the changing the bulbs but I have tried this out previously on my old e46 and they looked awful and chavy.

I have also seen that hid kits can be purchased but there are some issues like are they even legal? and how close to the genuine thing do they really look? I have seen the colour that looks very similar to factory fitted I think its the 4300K.

Can anyone help and as stressed I want as close as you can get to the real things and not the chavy blue look!

[Raj]

Welcome aboard. I'd just go with a hid kit (and as you say 4300k is OE). as you have projector lenses then a hid kit will look like original equipment.

[Dan1502]

Having looked into this I ended up being concerned about my warranty, legality, insurance etc and whether or not although xenons would look brighter, whether they would actually be brighter due to the lenses not being designed for their use. In the end I bought Philips Xtreme Vision bulbs which are brighter than standard and give a whiter light.

[lezmtaylor]

I bought from hids4u, one of the best mods I made to my car, it is like daylight at night.
It was fitted from new with xenons on dip, also changed the bulbs to 6000k.
Lez

[X5Sport]

Have you got headlight washing and auto-levelling fitted? It's not a problem now, but the warnings appearing about the MoT changes from 01/01/2012 may affect your decision as to whether to, or how to proceed or not. HID systems are being brought into scope from January so if you know a friendly MoT Tester, it might be worth a quick word to find out just what they've been told, and what passes/fails. My friendly one has just retired so didn't know all the details. If you need all the kit, then £1,000 seems to be around the right price. If it's for lights only, then that's a lot!!

I can second HIDS4U though. Their kit seems pretty good quality to me. I bought their Angel Eyes upgrade for the '53 and was very pleased with the result. Was going to do a full upgrade to all the lights, but SWMBO upped and sold the car - for a Mini......

[Waka]

Were Xenons not standard on facelifts then?

My 54 3.0D Sport allegedly has 'dual-xenons'. They look great on main (dipped) and full beam but pale and yellow on side-lights (which I guess they should).

[shej]

I know raj can supply and fit them..definitely worth the money for less than £150!

[X5Sport]

[quote=""Waka""]Were Xenons not standard on facelifts then?

My 54 3.0D Sport allegedly has 'dual-xenons'. They look great on main (dipped) and full beam but pale and yellow on side-lights (which I guess they should).[/quote]

Xenon HID lamps were only standard on the 4.8 I think. Everyone else had to pay for an upgrade. The outer lamp is the only HID unit. Bi-Xenon means that there is a mechanical shutter that moves out of the way to change the beam pattern on main beam. The inner lamps still use the conventional Tungsten Halide filament bulbs hence giving a yellow colour for the main beam unless you have a conversion.

Sidelights are only little filament lamps in the angel eyes.

[X-5 3.0d]

Hi All


Thanks for all the great feadback, anyone got any pics to show these hid kit in action on their cars?

Also heard that some of these HID Kits produce error messages on the dashboard is this correct?

[kkodal78]

if you just need a HID kit to fit to your oem housing and if you have H7 fitted i have extra kit that i can sell to you. i got them last year and never used it. every car i owned in UK which is about 8-10 cars so far in the last 3 years i put HIDs to make night driving easier in the winter time. i used to put them on dip beams and the fog lights. never had problems with the MOT. they did say that it is a little too bright when you have them all on and gave me an advisory but never failed them. it is very easy to put them on and once you have them on you can pretty much forget about changing bulbs for a long time. i think i still have a few H1s laying around for the E36s and E34s i owned and of course the H7 for the 540/ and the merc a class. since the X5 came with the HIDs i did not have to worry about it but now i am trying to see if i can upgrade my HIDs on the X5 to the brighter HIDs like 55W or even 75W version. the kit i have is 35W and you can have it for 45 quid shipped to you.i thing i paid 60 quid last year even i placed a bulk order to get a discount. the kit comes with that connector to eliminate error messages and also the kit is 5000K so it is close to oem with a little bit more blue in it.

[X-5 3.0d]

Are the stock projector units exacly the same as the xenon units and all that is needed to modify the headlights are bulbs and the ignitor units? (Obviously I know that these would need to be wired up), because I have been looking on ebay and found that you can buy original second hand ignitors and new bulbs on ebay.

KKodal with regards to your offer just need to do a bit more research before I commit, I will let you know once made a decision, thank you very much for the offer!

[kkodal78]

no problem
i always used the OEM headlight assemblies till i got the X5 and my 540i. i wanted to get angel lights on them so i changed them as well.