Upgrading BMW Halogen lights/DRLs

[LaurasOtherHalf]

New car purchased remotely and the happy day arrives this morning. Absolutely love it! All the spec we wanted and more, well apart from one thing...

It has poverty lights!

My own fault for not checking however we do live rurally and as the car will pick up children and ferry them about I'm kind of wishing it had the xenons with DRLs.

Now, I'm sure bolting in a set of BMW Xenon lights would result in some fault code showing and of course they wouldn't have the washers and ballasts come MOT time but is there a standardised way of upgrading these?

I don't want any boy racer blue ultra bright lights or stick on DRLs but, the car having good lights and actually being visible to other road users would be a plus.

Car is a 2015 X1

[DVandrews]

If you have projector type lenses then there are a number of good quality canbus ready HID kits which will go straight in to the head light nacelles without too much trouble, a 55w kit which give a very marked improvement, LED kits are also available for most bulb types which give stunning improvements. Both allow you to choose the colour temperature, 6000 being a good near OE bright white light. Similarly LED angel eye bulb can be bought from the same sources.

I have upgraded a number of vehicles with 100% success rate.

Dave

[bodhi]

Will fitting an HID kit cause issues come MOT time, or is that only for reflector type lenses?

[helix402]

Here’s one idea (though might need a friendly MOT tester):

http://e84.xbimmers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55...

[DVandrews]

bodhi said:

Will fitting an HID kit cause issues come MOT time, or is that only for reflector type lenses?

I have never had any kind of issue with upgrades on either type, projector lenses give better beam definition and glare cut off. With reflector lenses HID bulbs can be had with glare shields which mask prt of the beam. AFAIK the MOT regs state that headlamp washers must be in working order if they are fitted.

Dave

[SebringMan]

bodhi said:

Will fitting an HID kit cause issues come MOT time, or is that only for reflector type lenses?

They can now. The MOTs are changing at the end of this month. Besides DPFs being tested more carefully non-factory HIDs can result in a fail.

To add insult to injury the criteria are changing. From Advisories & Fails to Minors (Advisories), Majors (failure) and Dangerous (Dangerous to be driven anywhere).

With the latter the garage cannot give the car back to you unless you tow it away. If you're caught driving on a Dangerous point, even to a place of repair it will be a £1k fine. Ouch! My tester is worried many overzealous testers will be willing to use the Dangerous point to fleece customers. That and it works with the governments objectives; getting older more polluting vehicles off the road. It's not surprising with new car sales going down!

I am lucky in that I had a half decent tester.

Edited by SebringMan on Friday 13th April 10:05

[bmwmike]

The new MOT changes can result in a fail for HID fitment to non HID housings. The answer is to fit LED. I have LED fitted to a f10 halogen projector housing and the MOT beam pattern was spot on.

[LaurasOtherHalf]

These are the candles lights on question;

[TashaB]

Ultimate Styling stock a range of performance and custom headlights!

[Chris221273]

On my old e46 I bought ccf or ccl can't remember angel eyes.
They were super white and very bright.
Cost me £20 from eBay and easy to fit.
Lasted 2 years and Still working when I sold it on.
No errors either.