rodybmw

Some of you will remember that I have always wanted to get the Euro headlights because I prefer the clear side markers to the amber reflectors. Some of you will also remember that I bought a pair of Euro headlights from eBay.de that were "supposed to be" Adaptive, but turned out not to be because the seller had lied about it, both in his eBay listing and when I asked him directly with a question. Fortunately another forum member (Busta) who had halogens on his car and wanted to upgrade to Xenons (and did not mind the lack of the Active option) purchased the headlights from me and made them work on his E60.

I did not want to go through the process of locating another set of headlights because there are so many variables that all have to be right. So last month I decided to "make my own" Euro clear side marker look on my car by using stickers/pin stripes.

The first thing that I tried was using clear (white/silver) adhesive backed reflector sheets and it did not look that great. Then I thought that I would use chrome horizontal pin stripes with some gaps in the middle of the stripes that would simulate the look of the original BMW side marker, but that did not look good either. Then I tried covering the whole reflector that I had put on by alternating chrome and silver horizontal pin stripes and that looked much better, however, because the silver and chrome pin stripes were the same width (1/8") there ended up being too many lines when compared with the original sidemarkers. Finally I decided to keep the chrome 1/8" pin stripes but go with wider silver pin stripes. It ended up having the same amount of lines as the OEM and in my opinion it looks good......definately better than the amber reflectors.

The original Euro headlights that I had bought through eBay had silver coated amber lights for the front turn indicators which made it look better so I decided to do the same with mine. I switched the lamps with a silver coated lamp that is amber when it turns on but silver when it's off.

Here are some pictures:

Same width silver and chrome stripes:






Wider silver/narrower chrome pin stripes:





Chrome coated turn indicator lamps VS. amber lamps:









My car with fake Euro Lights (Titanium Gray) and Busta's car with real Euro Lights (Black):

NOTE: The first picture of the left side of the car is the even width stripes which does not look good because there are too many lines, but the second picture shows the right side of the car which has the right number of lines and it looks better

Bigfoot

wow...good thinking... i always wanted to get rid of the amber on the headlight...is it an easy task to accomplish what you have with your headlights??

Heiss5

I must say, that reading about it I was a little bit skeptic, but after seeing the pics I think it looks great. Up close you can tell that something is a little different about it (probably because it's on the outside of the light), but from 5-10 feet away (judging by pictures) I can't tell the difference.

EuroCarFan

Nicely done! I've always been trying to get the euro headlights also. I bought a pair from eBay.de as well but they were D1S and my car is D2S. The D1S fits newer E60s so it's being sold to a guy with an M5. I recently bought another set of euro headlights from the same seller, this time it's D2S and should be here in a couple of weeks. I must seem crazy spending that much money to get clear side markers......

eurotechnik

looks good

cliffysa

looks great wow

ICEMAN 316

Looks really good Great job rodybmw

my530i

Cool!

5er Sport

That looks awesome! Were did you buy the pin stripes you used ?

Thanks
Rich

rodybmw

The chrome ones I got from Pep Boys, but they were out of the silver ones in the width that I wanted, so I got those from an automotive paint store.