As per the subject really. Are the facelift coupe xenon headlights a straight replacement on a pre-facelift roadster? Doubt the coupe/roadster thing makes a difference just being 100% sure :roll:
Facelift coupe xenons in pre-facelift roadster?
- Thread starter playalistic
- Start date
Sorry mate, but they are not. The wiring setup is different. I believe that there were clear pre-facelift lights made for a very short period in 2005, but chances of getting those used is very slim indeed. You can buy them from BMW of course, but they are ££££!
PawnSacrifice said:
As I suspected. Looks like I don't actually have xenons anyway so that was a double fail
Cheers!playalistic said:As I suspected. Looks like I don't actually have xenons anyway so that was a double fail
Different story! Can be had for around £100 a side (what I payed). I bought left and right in separate auctions on eBay, from different sellers, within a few weeks of each other. They don't come up too often, but there will be competition when they do. The ones that do come up are mostly black lined though - which I prefer. Thankfully I have a 2.5 so black are standard, so that's the end of it. Some people with 3.0 object to the idea of going black lined as it downgrades the look of the car - frankly I doubt most people (away from here) would either notice or care. Personally I wouldn't let it stop me, whether I like something is my main concern, but just so you know the potential pitfall. Ironically the people that do seem to want to "downgrade" the look of their car are the M drivers.
It is unlikely that you will find mint condition lights for £100 but typically easily fixed - have a look at my mods link for what I did (with no experience but help from the chaps on here
).I would imagine just like the facelift rear lights it would be a case of changing the pins round to get them working, in the case of the rears bmw moved the earth which is why nothing lights up. They were clever enough to arrange the pins so anyone trying to would not damage anything by shorting out so was deliberate in my opinion. For the fronts the 12v supplied to the ballast can be the same 12v usually supplied to the halogens, cant see any reason why it wouldnt work once you re-arrange the pins on the headlight using trial and error and multimeter to see whats what.
yg54sg, the xenons are slightly different pre / post facelift in the way that the full beam / flash work IIRC (have seen this explained in proper grown-up terms before), not sure if that would affect how simple this would be to do and whether there needs to be a mod further back along the loom, toward the switch... but I know from your rear light exploits that you've got skills so bow to your superior knowledge
If you're suggesting an upgrade from halogens to xenons and had some way of making that work, you would achieve hero status, no doubt! Other issues aside, assume the self levelling is easy to add, if not self contained, blank off the adjusting plate by the headlight switch and then add the washers (if not present).
If you're suggesting an upgrade from halogens to xenons and had some way of making that work, you would achieve hero status, no doubt! Other issues aside, assume the self levelling is easy to add, if not self contained, blank off the adjusting plate by the headlight switch and then add the washers (if not present).
I've never understood the whole washer thing: I've got halogens but I've also got the washers. Previous owner thought it had xenons due to the washers and had advertised it as such, but it was quite obvious when I switched the lights on (before buying!) that they were halogens...
I've just about given up looking for clear halogen headlights - would rather spend my money on other things, amber doesn't offend me too much.
I've just about given up looking for clear halogen headlights - would rather spend my money on other things, amber doesn't offend me too much.
I think A11y has tried!
To be honest, it was a mod I did because the parts came up (not trying to rub it in
)... and on the pre facelift bumper I think the ambers look okay - in some instances stop the car from looking too bland.
To be honest, it was a mod I did because the parts came up (not trying to rub it in
)... and on the pre facelift bumper I think the ambers look okay - in some instances stop the car from looking too bland.Too right I've tried!
I can't even find intact replacement clear halogens, despite those being "less" desireable and also more common than clear xenons. If I did then I'd do a simple change over and sell my ambers to recoup some of the outlay (I doubt it's be possible to do it free although I seem to recall some folk have got good prices for their ambers on ebay). But I can't even get my hands on the clear halogen units
I can't even find intact replacement clear halogens, despite those being "less" desireable and also more common than clear xenons. If I did then I'd do a simple change over and sell my ambers to recoup some of the outlay (I doubt it's be possible to do it free although I seem to recall some folk have got good prices for their ambers on ebay). But I can't even get my hands on the clear halogen units
a11y said:Too right I've tried!
I can't even find intact replacement clear halogens, despite those being "less" desireable and also more common than clear xenons. If I did then I'd do a simple change over and sell my ambers to recoup some of the outlay (I doubt it's be possible to do it free although I seem to recall some folk have got good prices for their ambers on ebay). But I can't even get my hands on the clear halogen units
have you tried 1stchoice.co.uk?
yg54sg, the xenons are slightly different pre / post facelift in the way that the full beam / flash work IIRC (have seen this explained in proper grown-up terms before), not sure if that would affect how simple this would be to do and whether there needs to be a mod further back along the loom, toward the switch... but I know from your rear light exploits that you've got skills so bow to your superior knowledge
If you're suggesting an upgrade from halogens to xenons and had some way of making that work, you would achieve hero status, no doubt! Other issues aside, assume the self levelling is easy to add, if not self contained, blank off the adjusting plate by the headlight switch and then add the washers (if not present).
Yes from what I have read previously on here the issue would be the 'flash to pass'.... In the halogen and pre facelift xenon the full beam feed + wire will light up the inner full beam halogens and also open the shutter on the outer xenon normal beam if they are xenon.
If you were to install facelift xenon lights and changed the pins to the correct positions, it would only activate the shutter as there is as you say no halogen full beam lamp and the dipped beam (xenon) ballast would have no power going to it therefore no light when you pull the stalk back so pretty much useless.
If it were me i would put a couple of diodes in there and connect the full beam positive to the dipped beam positive then when you pull the stalk back to activate flash to pass it should strike the xenon ballast and open the shutter at the same time the diodes would stop the full beam current running back up the wire which may or may not be an issue depending on how the LCM handes it. To me I dont think it would be an issue because theres a brake light full circle mod which involves shorting out the tail light to the brake light wires and that works fine and doesnt cause the LCM any issues so it sounds like it has diodes in there already.
So to summarise to get it working you would need to reoganise the pins on the headlight, so indicators, sidelight and lowbeam work, with highbeam activating the shutter correctly then add a couple of diodes to the dipped beam and full beam feeds and if changing from halogen to facelift xenon you would likely need some load resistors to keep the bulb out light off on the dash as I doubt the ballast or motor for the shutter would have sufficient resistance to fool the bulb out light.. but then again you never know, you would have to try it.
its a shame I cant help further.... if I had halogens I would do this mod but I have the pre facelift orange indicator xenons already so I am currently butchering a pair of pre facelift lights (i think) with black inners that have the clear indicator lenses (pretty rare I would have thought being pre faceift sounds like someone paid for these from bmw?) they have no angel eye and i thought all facelifts did, quite a bargain off ebay.
haha thanks re superior knowledge 
what we have to remember here when it comes to the lights there is no magic going on, no circuit boards within the lights its just BMW making sure we dont plug and play the facelift with the non facelift so pins have been re-arranged and a few little workarounds like in the case of the rear lights.
Re the self leveling - that may be a problem as none of the tilt sensor gear would be installed, with regards to the washer jets that would be an easy retrofit i think as its in the bmw accesories catalogue. You would be better with OEM xenons with no self levelling than aftermarket HID kit as at least the beam pattern would be spot on and not all over the place like with the HID kits (speaking from experiance with my bmw compact!) the way I see it is they allowed the new range rover on the road get infront of that thing on a night with its xenons that is 10x worse than any car with no self levelling!
what we have to remember here when it comes to the lights there is no magic going on, no circuit boards within the lights its just BMW making sure we dont plug and play the facelift with the non facelift so pins have been re-arranged and a few little workarounds like in the case of the rear lights. Re the self leveling - that may be a problem as none of the tilt sensor gear would be installed, with regards to the washer jets that would be an easy retrofit i think as its in the bmw accesories catalogue. You would be better with OEM xenons with no self levelling than aftermarket HID kit as at least the beam pattern would be spot on and not all over the place like with the HID kits (speaking from experiance with my bmw compact!) the way I see it is they allowed the new range rover on the road get infront of that thing on a night with its xenons that is 10x worse than any car with no self levelling!