Retrofitting Xenon Headlights.....

Macca-118d · June 23, 2015

this is one real bug bear for me, having had OEM xenons on near enough all my previous cars, and having bought a 1 series sport that doesnt have them is really starting to rile me now, not only do they look gash, I find they give generally poor lighting also, in comparison to other halogen lights especially when on motorways or country lanes etc. As upgrading to the OEM angel eye/bi xenon is just pretty much out of the question due to price, I was wondering if this could be the way forward and anyone had a crack at a retrofit project, or like me considering the option, I may become the guinea pig if not as i really do want to do something with my lights, I have an old Audi A3 headlight sat in my garage doing nothing and some old HID kit stuff laying about, so am going to order a set of these and have a trial run:

ive been doing some research and it looked pretty straight forward to do to be fair, my only concern is not knowing how much "butchering so to speak may be involved which is why once ive got hold of my kit im going to trial it on the A3 headlight, there are loads and loads of examples of all types of cars on this website i came across but here is a good one of an older style 1 series, and hes done a pretty daymn good job, seen as there are no aftermarket style projector lights on for our f20, its either OEM or lump it, and i think this could be worth a punt.

http://www.hidplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?52722-BMW-128i-FX-R-and-Some-LED-s

thoughts?

peacheyd · June 25, 2015

Just a word of warning, having xenons means there are some weird rules you have to abide to for passing an MOT (unless you know a guy etc..) i know someone else who wanted to fit Angel eyes etc.. but by law apparently you need to have a washer jet on the lights.

sorry havnt got any useful advice on fitting or anything.

Macca-118d · July 3, 2015

Nah mate i dont worry about that, ive upgraded to xenon units on both my last audi a3's no washer jets or auto levelling, as long as the beam pattern and allignment are correct, thats all they care about, ive had no issues with either audis for last 7 year. Obv the xenon has to be in a projector lamp so you get the cut off line etc, hid kids in normal reflector get crazy light scatter yes that will fail. 👍

Colwil116 · July 13, 2015

It is only illegal if they do not work. So if you do not have headlight washers they can not test them.

Like a spare tyre, it has to be road legal but if you take it out before the MOT then you pass. Stupid but the way it works.

I am currently testing it on the LCI model so different head lights. To be honest your model would be easier to wire due to it not having LED DRL's but the shape of the headlights make it harder.