Upgrading xenon bulbs
After picking up my i3 last year, I realized how lacking the xenons on my other cars were. I assumed the Z just needed a proper adjustment but that only helped marginally and did nothing for distance. My F25 wasn’t too bad but still left something to be desired when driving on CT back roads. So I decided perhaps it was time to upgrade the xenon bulbs since I still had the originals. I found YouTube reviews from
TheRetrofitSource to be most helpful and ultimately narrowed it down to the Osram Xenarc 66240 CBB and Philips 85122 Extreme Vision Gen2.
Purchasing
I bought my bulbs from
Lightwerkz during their 20% Labor Day sale. Do not be tempted to buy bulbs from eBay, Amazon, etc. There’s way too many fakes out there and you may think spotting them is easy but a lot of sellers purposely price their merchandise a few bucks less than MSRP as if you're getting a modest discount. Truth is you're just getting that much more reamed. Here's a good
link pointing out differences in fake vs genuine.
FWIW I met the owner of Lightwerkz few years back at the track and he’s a stand up guy. I highly recommend him for any of your lighting needs (parts and service).
Impressions
I am very satisfied with both bulbs. The Z got the Osrams and the X got the Philips. Osrams are marketed as 7000K but it’s much closer to 6000K. The Philips are rated 4800K so it has a very stock like color but a tad whiter.
On a relative basis, the Philips are marginally brighter but the Osrams have a whiter output with slight hue of blue. I prefer the looks of the Osram but to be clear brightness isn’t being compromised at this point. The CBB is a huge improvement over the factory bulbs. The pics below exaggerate how yellow the Phillips are because I'm so close to the garage. At a normal distance these are still whiter than your factory bulbs. Not the most controlled setup considering different cars but you get the idea.