changed the original bulbs for Night Breakers and whilst not bad they didn’t light up my world. one of them blew and i replaced both with some GE Blue thingy Xenon-a-likes which are frankly a bit pants, especially on the motorway.

with winter coming i want some decent lights.

does anyone run LEDs? much improvement over Halogens? pissed off the oncoming traffic?

previous LED lights i’ve used (for the side/parking lights) have been a case of simply swapping the bulbs. assume the same is treu for main lights?

Assume the lifetime should be better, too…

Led = mod = tell insurer I expect.

I swear by Bosch Pure Light. Won’t fit anything else (other than temporarily) as a dipped beam bulb now.

Not insanely bright but consistently good and decent life span.

I like reliably good YMMV.

It’s possible to buy LED conversions for old-skool 6″ round headlights, like on LR Defenders, but I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to find LED replacement ‘bulbs’ for existing halogen units that work, because there isn’t a high enough output emitter available and they need specially designed reflectors and lenses to give a correct beam pattern for dip and main.
Have a look at cars with full LED headlight units, like Seat Leon, Citroen DS3, Vauxhall Astra and Mokka, and high-end Audi, you’ll see a bunch of small individual lenses, each with its own emitter, matrix units allow the lights to alter beam patterns on the fly, some are even gps-linked, to alter light patterns according to the actual road contours.
Audi even has a laser light system on the latest R8, but they’re all specific to each car model, and I’m confident none could be adapted to any other vehicle.

What condition are your headlights in also is the aim correct?

I’m still insure how they manage to get led light to light the way on wet nights. My led bike lights do nothing to light the road if it is wet…unsure how they manage it in a car.
Rather than mess about with a different lighting technology in your existing set up why not just add more lights to the front of the car?

I’ve looked at this before. Upgrading to anything other than a direct replacement with similar output isn’t advisable.

The reflectors, etc on your car will not be designed for the output generated by HID, LED, whatever – so you’re just going to blind oncoming traffic.

HIDs also need to have washers and be self-levelling. LEDs just need to be self-levelling.

Your car won’t (or shouldn’t…) pass an MOT with upgraded, non standard, headlights due to the beam pattern.

I’m not impressed with the LED lamps on my car. I can see why people drive with fog lamps often.

My led lights are poor in rain /wet floor due tot the angle of reflection of the light wavelength,

I have put nightbreakers in the main headlight then stuck a 24inch led light bar in the bumper. Best of both worlds.

My old Accord had awful headlights, had similar experience to you with Osram night breakers. Took the plunge and got an eBay hid bulb set. As they were projector lights it worked really well, massively improved the lighting. Never got flashed by oncoming traffic and nice clear cut off of the beam.

MOT seems to be a bit of a grey area, some people say it will fail for the reasons mentioned above, others say as car wasn’t fitted with self levelling and washers as standard they couldn’t be tested. My experience was that it passed the MOST fine after the conversion.

So if you have projector style headlamp units I’d say get a HID conversion kit.

Might give the Bosch ones a try.

Headlights (the housing) are relatively new so not a problem of yellowing glass. Beams are set to German spec.

Lots of LED headlights available. Assumed that they are simple plug and go jobbies.

https://www.amazon.de/gp/aw/d/B01FHOY7E8/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1504373569&sr=1-3&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=h7+led+mit+zulassung&dpPl=1&dpID=51wCysZjXML&ref=plSrch

To be fair to the bluey fake xenon things I have now it was raining like mental bat shit crazy going along the non-lit Autostrada beside Lake Como during a fierce yet impressive thunderstorm.

Read my previous comment about lights wavelength.

You still in Germany Alpin? If so stick with standard as the TuV people will get a little aggravated with non-approved light conversions.
In UK if you happen to run into a switched on copper (did you see what I did there?) he/she will issue a summons for non-compliant lights for HID conversions on cars without washers and/or self levelling lights/suspension.

This your t5? They’re pretty shit whatever bulbs you put in – led’s won’t meet your regs.

Can you pick up a set of twin lights from a caravelle? Makes a world of difference.

If it’s pre facelift you can also boost power at the light with a relay and direct battery power.

I think led lights also use different power levels so normal lights draw a standard amount (of current? Voltage?) but led lights vary…

Do they do an upgraded loom? I put one in on my VW T4 and fitted some phillips extreme bulbs and its so much better. Dipped on original T4 loom was like bike lights from 15 years ago..

Not running LEDs but the best upgraded headlights I’ve found are ring xenon max. Best balance of performance, cost, lifespan. Previously ran Osrams and philips

GlennQuagmire – Member

The reflectors, etc on your car will not be designed for the output generated by HID, LED, whatever – so you’re just going to blind oncoming traffic.

Nah. “not designed for” doesn’t automatically mean “will blind”. But it does definitely mean “may blind”. Some halogen headlight assemblies actually take HID retrofits really nicely, some are disastrous. I put a dual beam kit in my motorbike and unexpectedly one lens was excellent (it had some mad scatter but straight up so no glare risk) and the other was horrendous. So I ended with one illegal, non-levelling HID in one headlight and a nightbreaker in the other. Passed 4 MOTs, got stopped and inspected several times by the police…

Personally I wouldn’t do it in a car just because most car headlights aren’t as shit as my bike headlights were.

This your t5? They’re pretty shit whatever bulbs you put in – led’s won’t meet your regs.

Can you pick up a set of twin lights from a caravelle? Makes a world of difference.

Yup, T5. And it is, or rather was, a Caravelle. Now has the twin lights with the BMW style rings (the old lights had burnt the reflector/mirrored surface…. Was cheaper to buy the “pimpy” lights than the VW offer.)

I’ll ask the TÜV guy next week. I thought as long as the item has an E-number you should be good to go without getting another test done.