Let me save you sometime....UMNITZA OR JOHN AT MOTORCEPTS....you want bright? youll go with HID angel eyes, you want nice accent lighting go with the leds. leds are NOT daytime visible, if they are it is kinda hard to tell. if you go with HID they are daytime visible and amazing at dawn/dusk like G530 said are very bright...but fully worth it.

 

LEDs can be visible... Orion v2 are LEDs

 

HAHA ok my apologies when you get orion V2s thats a different story. Umnitzas orion v2s are the best of the best angel eyes out there. i had them on my e46 zhp and they were very much so day time visible and at night very bright. the remote on feature was awesome! however Arvin does not want to open his headlights. for my 2008 535i i went with Umnitzas hid angel eyes 8k and am loving them. i also got the projectors for my foglights on my m5tech bodykit, and my 8k hid bulbs for the projector housings all from umnitza and at night i drive with my angels and foglights on cuzz thats all i need if its super dark then ill turn on my headlights in addition to my fogs.

 

I just installed the GP Thunder II 7500k on my LCI '08 550i last night. Simple plug and play for $15. They are white and match the zenons great. My goal was to get rid of the amber color which looked ridiculous next to the white zenons. I also did not want to go HID or Orions due to being too bright. I say that b/c I installed the Orion V-2's in my e46. They were very nice and bright and you could see them from far away even during the day. However, I think cops would also notice them more and I was pulled over twice for simple window tint and no front license plate with no other infractions. To me they just attracted the wrong attention but drivers always did the double take on them. Just a few weeks ago a guy was driving and snapping photos of the front of my car b/c I guess he loved the AE's. He gave me a thumbs up when I passed him.

In the end it comes down to how much do you want to spend and how bright you want them to be. I concluded the GP thunders vs. LED's were probably so close in brightness but so far off on price the GP Thunders won hands down. If I wanted to go back to having the brightest AE's out there I would go HID's. I would avoid Orions only b/c you have to break into the housing. I had to do this on my e46 but I believe it is a simpler process than the e60.

I showed my wife the OEM H8 amber after installing one side of the GP's last night. She immediately said GP thunder whites over the yellow OEM. All I needed to hear.

 

Cecilt, where did you pick up the GP Thunders?

I'm in the same boat as you... my previous car (E46 330Ci) attracted a lot of unwanted attention with dark tint, bright angel eyes, black wheels, etc. I want to mod my E60 much more subtle and classy... also looking to update the color of the AE's without going too bright (I don't need to have them superbright at night since I'll have my headlights on... gone are the days of riding around with just my parking lights on at night for a cheesy pimp look!).

 

I got mine from eBay. GP thunder II 7500k. They look nice and much better than the yellow OE color. I also ordered the GP thunder II 9006 55w 5800k fog light bulbs. The color matches the AE and zenons much better than the stock fog light color and keeping them at 5800k will still generate good lightoutput. Remember the higher the color temperature the less light they put out.

 

I got mine from eBay. GP thunder II 7500k. They look nice and much better than the yellow OE color. I also ordered the GP thunder II 9006 55w 5800k fog light bulbs. The color matches the AE and zenons much better than the stock fog light color and keeping them at 5800k will still generate good lightoutput. Remember the higher the color temperature the less light they put out.

 

Okay, so i went with the LUX Led angel eyes. They look great and work great for the most part except for one issue. So a little while after i put them in, the car started saying that "The left day time running light/parking light malfunctioned." Sometimes it would happen once, sometimes many times, and sometimes not at all. But the Angel eyes were working the entire time. And so i swapped the led's around. The one i had in the driver side to the passenger side and vice versa to eliminate the chance that it was a bad bulb. But the Car still says that the left side malfunctioned. Any ideas on what to do?

Thanks.

 

I believe it is a known issue for the LUX AE and the E60. They are working on a solution. I've contacted them as mine does the same thing with the sporadic bulb warnings. They were willing to trade them out now or trade them when they have a resolution. I'm going to wait for the fix. For now, I have GP Thunder 8500K V2 in the AE, cornering lights, and fogs. I'll put the LUX AE back in when they have a permanent fix.

 

3 basic options for maximum output in this order:
ICE VXX - new special announced by TIM this week.
ICE LCI H8 - HID based - hard to install, but worth it if you don't mind the super bright high beam with ok low beam.
Orion V2 - must open your lights, but best fitment.