mark31415

Hi, I've got a 2008 520d with halogen projector style headlights. They are not particularly good! I've rubbed down and polished the lenses which made a massive difference but still no where near as good as any of my other cars. I'm considering trying LED lights. I have seen lots of kits from £5 to £150. Has anyone successfully upgrade to LED without causing loads of problems. I accept I may need to switch back for MOT but given I have self-levelling suspension may not have to do that.

Something like this looks like it should work ebay Link
But then says may need adapters and can-bus modifications.


Don't want to end up buying loads of bits and pieces and then finding out nothing actually works well so question is has anyone with LCIU type headlights successfully gone to LED without too much drama?

For BMW E90 LCI E91 E81 E87 H7 100W LED Bulbs Headlight Kit-CANBUS ERROR FREE 2X | eBay

y0itzflip

it will not be better, led bulbs in a halogen housing will be terrible every way you look at it. only way would be to do a projector retrofit. if you MUST upgrade, a proper HID retrofit will yield more light but im not sure how effective the beam pattern would be...if youre a light enthusiast, this matters.


for example

https://www.m5board.com/threads/quad...-setup.406689/

mark31415

My 2008 LCI already has projector units in it. I was hoping that an LED upgrade in that would work better in my projectors than in a reflector and give a more focussed beam pattern but all the threads I find tend to focus on the Halo "style" upgrade rather than actually wanting to see better in the dark.

y0itzflip

a halogen based projector will not yield better lighting because you put a brighter bulb in it. it will just be more unbalanced light all over the place. i linked you a thread to a fellow lighting enthusiast in my previous reply brother. ive used his info to help with my lighting upgrades also. if you look at his threads he eventually removed halos all together because he is one that cares about light input more so that halos.

Singh520D

Same here... 520D halogen... Upgraded all the bulbs to LED including the angel eyes and distribution of the lights is better as white LED offers more visibility... Night driving is way better now... Sometimes the error pops up but I coded it now to not display light errors...

y0itzflip

led bulbs do not have better light distribution in a halogen or HID housing VS hid bulb. its just not possible. its been tested over and over again. if you want more info do some research on retrofitsource. they might be "brighter" compared to halogen, but the beam pattern, hot spots, light distance etc are nowhere on par to a proper retrofit.


just sayin.

jessicaemma

LED light has always been my go to anytime. It brightness is second to none. I've also tried to use halogen projector light sometimes ago but didn't like the brightness. Whether you will enjoy the LED light or not now depends on where you get it because I've heard some of my friends complain about their LED lights. I always get mine from https://dynamo-led-displays.ae/ and I've not encountered any problem so far so good.

Dosequisrex

mark31415 - did you ever decide on some LEDs?
I found this kit that claims it wont throw any errors
https://www.ledperf.us/high-power-le...s-p-47366.html

I'm looking at also just making the jump from halogen to LED and not doing an HID-kit/Xenon.