[Mancdon]

morning everyone

this may have asked before, but i can't find any mention of it

i was thinking about converting me 1999 E46 coupe over to the HID lights, but have been advised due to the location of the battery in the boot it would cost a fair whack to feed the cables through from the boot to the engine bay

does anyone know of a cheaper alternative

i have brilliant white bulbs on there at the moment, including the fogs (£12.99 for the set) which are ok

 

[6891_seb]

Mancdon - I have ammended your thread title to include your car details so it adheres to forum rules :thumbsup

I have recently upgraded to HID lights on my E46. I dont know what you mean by feeding cables to the battery?

Its pretty much plug and play mate, no need to go anywhere near the boot

 

[Mancdon]

thanks for the amendment

was advised, due to the cables from the hid system, needing to go from the lights to the battery, they'd need to be cabled through

i know on me previous car (wont mention, lol) the hid system was wired direct to the battery

thanks for letting me know, can go looking now

 

[6891_seb]

Check out this guide...:thumbsup

Gives a decent idea of whats involved

 

[AlfonsoX]

I'd be careful with aftermarket HID lights. One, they dazzle everyone coming at you but the main reason is some MOT places have failed cars because of HID lights and i've heard rumours that aftermarket HID lights will not be allowed on the new MOT rules.

If you're changing the actual whole head lamp unit for projectors like the M3 has you might be ok, but if your just changing the bulbs with an ebay kit, but keeping the standard reflector lamp units come MOT time you might have to change them back.



EDIT:

found a video that talks about them, the department for transport says they aren't allowed and if the mot is performed properly then it will fail.

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/videos/featuresvideos/204742/xenon_test.html

I know someone with a proper kitted out 4x4 with all the roof spot lights and if he see's someone coming with main beam on or HID lights he switches on about 500 watts of light!

 

[Paddy2bsure]

Personally I've had HID's on my E46 for a little bit now. I neither had projector nor XENON lights, just normal pre-facelift "reflector" headlights. The H7 fitment bulbs supplied in the HID kid produce a lot of scattered light in my car; the cut-off line is very blurred, and they're very difficult to aim properly. I got some H7R bulbs, which have a metal shield on them to reduce scatter - it's better, and the dipped beam cut-off is better, but still not great.

I'm reverting my lights to normal halogen H7 bulbs next week before my MOT - it'll fail on them currently, and I'd prefer a crisp beam pattern rather than scattered ill-focused lights - so I'll be sticking with the standard halogens.

They suit projector lights brilliantly, so when I get rid of them I'll be recommending them as such.

HTH

 

[garmcqui]

i fitted Depo projectors and a 50W HID kit to mine.

Light output is absolutely fantastic at night, and with the projectors the beam pattern is perfect. Sailed through MOT last time, and I'd specifically asked him to check/adjust the beam pattern.

Fitted in ordinary reflector headlights, they're not great and look a bit chavvy if I'm honest.

 

[SE24]

Any pictures at night garm?

 

[garmcqui]

not yet, but will try and get some tonight if I can...

 

[lee_h]

Yeah there was a statement on a website saying that come October aftermarket hids wud fail an mot if they ain't a standard option on the car and also any warning lights on and any ecu remaps, dunno how they will check that though

 

[AlfonsoX]

Yeah there was a statement on a website saying that come October aftermarket hids wud fail an mot if they ain't a standard option on the car and also any warning lights on and any ecu remaps, dunno how they will check that though

I must have read the same site as you but i thought it was only for modchips rather than ecu remaps, although maybe they can check for remaps by plugging into the OBD port perhaps?
and about modchips, BMW have spent millions on developing the ECU software to perform as good as it can and be reliable, then along comes a chav with £20 and an ebay account thinking he knows better... Anyway, I digress.

HIDs in projectors i think look pretty sweet, nice light output and colour, but in the standard halogen designed reflectors... not so much.
If you want more light and don't mind dazzling everyone just drive around with main beam on all the time!:hihi

 

[lee_h]

Dunno how they will check for remaps but I have just looked at another post and the aftermarket hids one is a bit inaccurate, what they are actually going to do is inspect the auto levelling feature of hids and if it is not functioning properly or does not have one then it's a fail, also airbag lights apparently will be a fail

 

[SE24]

not yet, but will try and get some tonight if I can...

Sounds good, I'll look forward to it!

 

[garmcqui]

as promised, here's some pics of the Depo Projector headlights with the 50w kit from HIDs Direct:

Light Output:

Beam Pattern:

In Traffic:

Some of those pics make them look "bluer" than they really are. I went for the 6000k colour.

I'm very happy with them. Like I said, went straight through MOT and I've had nobody flash me to say they're dazzling...

Gareth

 

[bobdisk]

Good pics of the lights performance! I too have got a pair of Depos for my 323Ci. I was disappointed with the beam pattern, it shows a distinct flat down to the left, as in Garmcqui's pic "beam pattern". There should be a kink up to the left (in countries that drive on the left, rhd, and opposite for lhd), as in the standard lights. The idea, I believe is to illuminate roadsigns. I took apart the lights and modified the flap inside to give that kink, its improved a bit, but I am still not satisfied. Have your lights got a flip inside to change between LHD and RHD ? I use normal H7 halogens, but wonder if I should go for HIDs. After my mods, they passed MOT ok. I intend to go inside them again sometime, and will do some pics then, give me a couple of weeks.

 

[bimmer320]

Good pics of the lights performance! I too have got a pair of Depos for my 323Ci. I was disappointed with the beam pattern, it shows a distinct flat down to the left, as in Garmcqui's pic "beam pattern". There should be a kink up to the left (in countries that drive on the left, rhd, and opposite for lhd), as in the standard lights. The idea, I believe is to illuminate roadsigns. I took apart the lights and modified the flap inside to give that kink, its improved a bit, but I am still not satisfied. Have your lights got a flip inside to change between LHD and RHD ? I use normal H7 halogens, but wonder if I should go for HIDs. After my mods, they passed MOT ok. I intend to go inside them again sometime, and will do some pics then, give me a couple of weeks.

I had depos on my old 330ci sport with xenons. They looked good aesthetically but i found the pattern iffy aswell. I had to set them a wee bit hight to get a decent spread on the road. I just retrofitted some projectors into my refledctor lights this time round.


All the proposed MOT regulation stuff isnt concrete yet :thumbsup

 

[garmcqui]

I doubt they would bring it in for cars produced before the new standards anyway, it might only apply to cars produced from that point, no?

Anyway, current regulations about HID lights only apply to factory HID's, and technically they don't even say that auto levelling is required, it just has to be some form of leveling, which we all have anyway.

 

[SE24]

Pics look good garm, cheers for those!

 

[RZK3F8]

My mate is an MoT technichan with the local council and apparently HiD lights must have a washer function and autolevelling to pass an MoT making most retro fit kits not strictly legal. You wll notice that all cars that have HiD/Xenon lights from factory have headlight washers.

A lot of places probably won't check it or be aware of the requirement though...

 

[garmcqui]

Washers and auto levelling only required on factory fit HID's, currently