V8 Vantage - what headlight bulbs and easy to fit?

[marknash99]

After an early morning start I've now discovered how rubbish the halogen headlights are on my car I did think about getting an aftermarket HID kit but I've been a little bit put off lately after reading suggestions that aftermarket HID kits are illegal and could be used to invalidate your insurance should you have a claim (or even be used to pass blame!)

So I'm thinking of just buying the best halogen headlight bulbs I can buy. A quick bit of research and it seems Philips X-Treme Vision are the ones to go for? Any other opinions?

So what fitment do I need? For both dipped and main beam?

Also how difficult are these to fit? The cars off to be serviced soon (probably at David Appleby) Should I just hand it to them to do?

[bogie]

Im on halogens in my car. To be honest, the high end ones you pay £25 a bulb for verusus £5 generic ones, might look whiter, but are not really that much better. Ive tried PIAA, and Philips +. I think the latter are in there now

Give them a try, they look a bit better, but not significantly....still like driving in the dark compared with my Range Rover HIDs

Fitting is a bit of a fiddle, not something you would want to do roadside in the dark the first time. I would get them changed at service time whilst theyve got the wheels off, and easy access

[marknash99]

Cheers Mark. Turns out finding upgraded bulbs for the H9 and H11 fitment is not easy, not too many options out there. Waiting for a call back from David Appleby to see what they suggest. Hoping they may something along the lines of "buy H7's, we can make them fit"

[mikey k]

I put 100W main beams in mine
It made bugger all difference

[bogie]

mikey k said:

I put 100W main beams in mine
It made bugger all difference

Yeah, you cant beat real HIDs ...conversion kits are ok so long as you have a friendly/dumb MOT tester and get them setup right in the first place

[Thorny]

marknash99 said:

Cheers Mark. Turns out finding upgraded bulbs for the H9 and H11 fitment is not easy, not too many options out there. Waiting for a call back from David Appleby to see what they suggest. Hoping they may something along the lines of "buy H7's, we can make them fit"

Would love to know what they say on this.

BR advised raise height adjustment and disable electronic ride height movement...

[bogie]

interesting, i assumed the height adjustment was only on HID headlight equipped cars ...