TECH WERKS BY BOYD

Written by Gary Espeland

Understanding, Installing, and Upgrading your car’s lighting system to incorporate Xenon HID (High Intensity Discharge) lights.

Xenon or HID lights have brought a great deal of improved visibility to night driving.  Measured using a Kalvin scale that ranges from 3000K up to 12,000K these lights provide far superior visibility during night driving compared to Halogen and sealed beam headlights.  Adapting HID lights to BMWs that did not come so originally equipped is becoming more common place, and we have done many conversions at our shop.  But before you go charging off to change the lights in your car, it may be wise to do some additional research and practice some due dilligence.  This article may help you better understand some of the issues associated with this type of upgrade.

For BMW owners, Xenon headlights only started to emrge as original equipment at the turn of the century on their flagship cars, and just recently have become standard on many more models.  So this means there are a lot of BMWs out there today that could benefit from a lighting upgrade.

There are a lot aftermarket kits available that allows owners to either replace their existing headlight system with a HID’s, or suppliment their existing headlights with HID driving lights.   Although many after market kits are DOT approved, this does not mean they are street legal.  Getting your HID lights to legally comply for use on public roads may mean also having to change out your headlight housing to HID approved housings. Also, DOT approved HID lights range from 6000 to 8000K on the Kalvin scale, so it may be wise to keep your aftermarket lights in this range as well.  Anything higher and your headlight color could attact the wrong kind of attention!

That said, we have successfully converted a number of non-HID cars to HID and have even replaced some OEM HID headlights with after market substitutions.  We just make sure the customer is aware of all the issues.  These conversions aren’t too difficult and many times can be accomplished by the owener with a little patience, and a working understanding of electricals.

The cost of installing and owning Xenon headlights:
Installing an aftermarket kit isn’t too difficult for cars with Halogen or sealed beam lights, but the change will require some additional wiring, and maybe even installing some related parts to work properly.  If you have a much older car that uses sealed beam headlights, you will first need to switch over to Halogen lights before you can install one of these kits.  So keep this in mind if you go to a shop to purchase and have them install a HID lighting system,  expect to pay at least for one hour in tech time to have this conversion done.  Kits range anywhere in price from just under $100 to as much as $400.00.  Installation time will cost an additional $100-200 depending on the shop and complexity of the project. 

For cars that already have HID lights, experience has taught us that about 75% of the customers, who come into our shop with non-working headlights, learn that the problem is not the HID bulbs, but that it’s the ballasts and or ignitors that are bad.  Replacing bulbs is a simple and inexpensive fix, but replacing the electronic components in most late model BMW’s can be an expensive undertaking.  Many times it necessitates taking off the car’s front facia, which adds considerable tech hours to repair even one bad headlight.  When it’s all said and done, replacing the headlight components in newer BMW’s can run as much as $1000.00 depending on the year and model!

The cost of OEM replacement parts versus aftermarket kits.
For what you would pay to have one ballast replaced in your BMW at the dealer, you could probably purchase an aftermarket kit that could fix both headlights and would include the bulbs, ballasts, ignitors, and wiring.   We have also done a number of successful re-fits from OEM to aftermarket lighting systems on newer BMWs with excellent results and in some cases have relocated the electronic components to make future replacement easier and less expensive.  These changes also didn’t impact the car’s electrical monitoring system.  We wouldn’t recommend switching to aftermarket parts for cars still under the factory warranty, as it would void the warranty!

Adjusting HID headlights.
It’s unfortunate but true that most cars on the road today have poorly adjusted headlights, which cause visibility problems not only for the driver, but for drivers in on-coming traffic. Switching to HID lights means it’s even more important that you have your lights adjusted properly.  Because HID lights are so much brighter, if not adjusted properly your headlghts can dramatically reduce visibility in oncoming traffic due to the increased glare, and this glare could also attract the wrong kind of attention from your local law enforcement. 

Gary Espeland is a Managing Partner and General Manager of Boyd Motor Werks, Portland’s oldest inedpendent BMW repair shop.