[ducatiti]

A have a few unused USP Motorsport ballasts with a built in canbus that have been tested and confirmed that work with VW with no further coding required. Has anyone tried them on BMW?

If not, what would be the most cost effective kit that does not require coding?

And good Diy posts or videos out there? Did a quick search and did not find anything.

I know that most would not agree of installing these kits on halogen headlights but let's not go towards that direction.

[fazman]

Originally Posted by ducatiti

A have a few unused USP Motorsport ballasts with a built in canbus that have been tested and confirmed that work with VW with no further coding required. Has anyone tried them on BMW?

If not, what would be the most cost effective kit that does not require coding?

And good Diy posts or videos out there? Did a quick search and did not find anything.

I know that most would not agree of installing these kits on halogen headlights but let's not go towards that direction.

https://www.lifetimeledlights.com

[lookalikehuuh]

If you replace the halogen headlights with an HID Ballast and bulb you should not have any issues with errors showing up in iDrive. LEDs..... you simply cannot drive with LED bulbs installed on Halogen reflector because it will not properly reflect light at all. Cheap kits can be purchased online from places like DDMTuning, thehidfactory, Amazon, etc...

Anyway, even though there might be kits that are "designed" to directly replace your bulb it WILL blind oncoming drivers as the halogen reflector cannot correctly control HID light. Not only is this a safety hazard for other drivers but also to you since best believe you will get a face full of my HID high beams if you are driving towards me while blinding me with your HID low beams.

The ideal scenario would be for you to retrofit HID headlights on your vehicle. This will be quite expensive as federal law requires that HID headlights must have a height adjustment mechanism to prevent you blinding other drivers. This requires ride height sensors to be retrofitted in the front and rear of the vehicle so the system can properly aim the headlights based on load and vehicle angle.

[fazman]

Originally Posted by lookalikehuuh

If you replace the halogen headlights with an HID Ballast and bulb you should not have any issues with errors showing up in iDrive. LEDs..... you simply cannot drive with LED bulbs installed on Halogen reflector because it will not properly reflect light at all. Cheap kits can be purchased online from places like DDMTuning, thehidfactory, Amazon, etc...

Anyway, even though there might be kits that are "designed" to directly replace your bulb it WILL blind oncoming drivers as the halogen reflector cannot correctly control HID light. Not only is this a safety hazard for other drivers but also to you since best believe you will get a face full of my HID high beams if you are driving towards me while blinding me with your HID low beams.

The ideal scenario would be for you to retrofit HID headlights on your vehicle. This will be quite expensive as federal law requires that HID headlights must have a height adjustment mechanism to prevent you blinding other drivers. This requires ride height sensors to be retrofitted in the front and rear of the vehicle so the system can properly aim the headlights based on load and vehicle angle.

Or how about the low tech solution of:
1) grab your screw driver
2) go to headlight
3) put screw driver into headlight manual adjustment
4) turn the screw driver to aim the headlight to be dipped
5) done

Oh and if someone gives me a high beam of HID, they gonna get a high beam back of LED

[Meeni]

A hid bulb into a reflector cannot be adjusted. The reflection pattern is wrong and it scatters in all directions. Not only does it blind oncoming traffic but it it also decrease your own long distance visibility as all the short distance scatter closes your iris.

[Wilt]

Reflectors assume a specific placement of the H7 filament in the halogen bulb, so that the reflector can send the light forward optimally. So-called LED 'replacements' do NOT necessarily have light emitting elements at the correct point of focus for the reflector.



In the photo a standard H7 halogen and a 'H7 LED replacement' bulb were superimposed by me using the base as the reference for alignment. So where the yellow LED emitters are seen, which are NOT superimposed on the tungsten filament of the halogen, will be suboptimal positioning which does not necessarily get sent down the road in front of you where it does not most good. In the US the NHTSA says simplistic headlight conversions do not work, and the US association of aftermarket manufacturers preaches that to its member companies. But nothing stops greedy aftermarket vendors from selling non-compliant products to gullible consumers.

That is why merely inserting a HID bulb in place of halogen, or inserting LED in place of halogen, in the halogen reflector assemply, are not street legal conversions that could necessarily pass periodic state inspections. Folks who live in a state that has mandatory periodic vehicle inspections, not having the right DOT symbol on the headlight assembly (yes, there are counterfeits, but they can detect them) can result in failure of your vehicle, and no sticker will be issued for your car, and drive around for a while until the police stop and ticket you and court fines you.

Folks who live with there are no mandatory inspections, put yourself in the shoes of someone driving the opposite direction and being blinded by your not-legal conversion. Or put yourself in your own shoes and be blinded by unnecessary and excessive glare backscatter reflecting back into your eyes during snow/rain/fog. Then remember we 'told you so'

[NoSlow5oh]

Originally Posted by Meeni

A hid bulb into a reflector cannot be adjusted. The reflection pattern is wrong and it scatters in all directions. Not only does it blind oncoming traffic but it it also decrease your own long distance visibility as all the short distance scatter closes your iris.

+1

You can't adjust light going in all directions.

[ducatiti]

Originally Posted by lookalikehuuh

If you replace the halogen headlights with an HID Ballast and bulb you should not have any issues with errors showing up in iDrive. LEDs..... you simply cannot drive with LED bulbs installed on Halogen reflector because it will not properly reflect light at all. Cheap kits can be purchased online from places like DDMTuning, thehidfactory, Amazon, etc...

Anyway, even though there might be kits that are "designed" to directly replace your bulb it WILL blind oncoming drivers as the halogen reflector cannot correctly control HID light. Not only is this a safety hazard for other drivers but also to you since best believe you will get a face full of my HID high beams if you are driving towards me while blinding me with your HID low beams.

The ideal scenario would be for you to retrofit HID headlights on your vehicle. This will be quite expensive as federal law requires that HID headlights must have a height adjustment mechanism to prevent you blinding other drivers. This requires ride height sensors to be retrofitted in the front and rear of the vehicle so the system can properly aim the headlights based on load and vehicle angle.

Can someone confirm this? From the posts I have been reading, the dealer has to do some coding.

[Meeni]

It's not coding, you need a projector headlight that has been designed to host Hid bulbs. There are also full blown projector conversion, and these do work as intended and are a big improvement over reflectors. But it's more work, and not plug and play.

[lookalikehuuh]

Originally Posted by ducatiti

Can someone confirm this? From the posts I have been reading, the dealer has to do some coding.

I actually used to do this on the side on weekends you do need some coding along with completely new wiring harness to be installed and the aforementioned angle sensors. I specialized on E60s but we did some E90s here and there.

average cost would probably be 2-3k if done by an independant installer or 3-4k if done at a stealership.

The wiring along takes about 6-7 hours plus coding and new headlight installation is usually a 2 day job.

[lookalikehuuh]

Originally Posted by Meeni

It's not coding, you need a projector headlight that has been designed to host Hid bulbs. There are also full blown projector conversion, and these do work as intended and are a big improvement over reflectors. But it's more work, and not plug and play.

This is only partially correct. There are vehicles with reflector based headlights (non projector) that are factory HID. For example Lexus GS300/IS300 and other Toyota/Lexus vehicles. In these cases the reflector is specifically designed for the HID kit and uses special HID bulbs with metal "restrictors" that restrict where the light cutoff is; this bulb is designated with an R on the end to signify its designed for reflector systems (D2R instead of normal D2S). All of these vehicles come with the automatic headlight leveling systems to properly aim the headlights once .

This is an example of the HID bulb (D2R type) used on a reflector with the metal restrictor to prevent the headlight from reflecting light improperly on non-projector HID systems.

http://philipsautolights.factoryoutl...utUaAnlZ8P8HAQ

as you can see there is a black metal "restrictor" that limits light output specifically to match reflector systems ability to control reflections.

[ducatiti]

Originally Posted by lookalikehuuh

I actually used to do this on the side on weekends you do need some coding along with completely new wiring harness to be installed and the aforementioned angle sensors. I specialized on E60s but we did some E90s here and there.

average cost would probably be 2-3k if done by an independant installer or 3-4k if done at a stealership.

The wiring along takes about 6-7 hours plus coding and new headlight installation is usually a 2 day job.

Thank you but I'm just thinking of throwing a hid kit in there with no headlight mod, retrofit, etc.

[dassub]

Originally Posted by ducatiti

Thank you but I'm just thinking of throwing a hid kit in there with no headlight mod, retrofit, etc.

Please don't.

It sounds like you haven't actually bought the car yet. If this is the case, the E90 is getting pretty old now. You can just find one in the same price range that has stock HIDs already.

[ducatiti]

Too late now Car is now in the shop repairing a minor dent.

I heard that the stock ballast can cost as much as $1k per side..