Xenon Conversion/upgrade

[Diesel Quattro]

Hi all, tried the serach and couldnt find what i was after although most likely been brought up before.

I want to upgrade my one piece headlights so i have xenon vision. am i better off buying headlights from an S3, the ballasts from a set of xenon lights and fixing to mine (if that simple??) or just buying an aftermarket ballast for my current headlights??

I am guessing you can make the spot lights xenon too?

help would be much appreciated

aaron

 

[aragorn]

You can buy cheap retrofit kits on ebay, but they are very poor quality, and the optics in your halogen headlamp isnt designed for the HID burner, which can cause poor output or glare for other road users. This is the method most people take, but in my view its a fairly crappy option.

Personally, i'd be buying some S3 lamps.

The other option is to buy a set of proper HID projector units from somewhere like TRS, and install them into your halogen headlamp. That way you get proper D2S HID projector units with the correct optics for a HID burner, but dont need to find S3 lamps. Ofcourse it will require some DIY skills to install the projector into the halogen unit, but it'll likely be a better end result than even a proper S3 headlamp, as the projectors will be new and more modern.

 

[Tooks]

It has indeed been covered before, do a search for 'HiD kit' and you'll get 10 pages worth.

Most people just buy a HID kit from eBay or somewhere, but it's a hit and miss thing as some of the kits are woeful, and sometimes you will get DIS bulb out warnings and strange electrical woes.

Your facelift projector headlights should be ok for Xenon's (they will probably be CE marked for both) and original ballast is the best way to go if you're going down this road, but clearly you won't be able to use original bulbs as the fittings are different. Otherwise, when I converted one of my old cars, I used some H7 to D2S bulb holder converters, some good 3rd party ballast, and genuine Phillips D2S bulbs. Not the cheapest way to go about it, but it was a good system that never caused me any trouble.

As an aside, and as others may mention it, you ought to fit headlight washers and self levelling to be fully legal, and be prepared for possible difficulties come MOT time if not. You will need the headlights aligning properly too.

I wouldn't bother nowadays, I'd just get some quality H7 bulbs, and possibly fit some decent cree LED bulbs to the fogs, although I can't remember the last time I turned my fog lights on!

 

[aragorn]

The casing is CE marked for both, but the projectors inside the casing are NOT the same between halogen and D2S lamps.

 

[Tooks]

How are the actual projectors different?

I know the bulb holders are different, and therefore the distance between the bulb and the projector is too giving focal length issues, one of the reasons HID kit manufacturers came out with a shorter kit bulb.