Newbie LED Headlight Bulb Question

[rtpatter]

Forgive me for asking a question that has been discussed at length here already but after reading I am more confused.

I recently purchased a 06' Z4 and would like to upgrade the exterior and interior lights to led. Currently has non Xenon halogen bulbs. I have read a number of post saying that there are no good options and that it will cause dash light codes, beam pattern won't work with existing projectors, etc.

However, I have read where others have done it and seem to have no issues. I have looked at the offering from precision led.com and it seems like it is plug and play and they have also matched all the necessary bulbs for the interior. Is there any reason this wouldn't work? I have swapped out LEDs on an older Lexus GX and it worked great.

I am also confused by the projector setup in the E85Z4, are there not 2 bulbs in each canister low beam and high beam. Every where I look that sells LEDs seem to be selling just one set of bulbs for the front projector.

Also would like to swap out the front fog lights and reverse lights to keep consistent coloring are there issues with these as well?

Thanks for you help.

[chickdr]

I have HID's in mine so can't help there but I have LED's in my hamburger side markers, interior, brake lights, rear turn signals and reverse lights. They are pretty much plug and play although the turn signals are a pain as I have to physically turn them on on both sides every time I start the car for it to recognize they are ok and turn the warning light off. They hyperflash 3-4 x then go to the normal rate until the car is shut down again. The BMW's system is quite finicky. I have a 2020 Frontier and swapped all the bulbs to LED without a single hitch.

[rtpatter]

How difficult was it to replace reverse and interior lights? I am thinking of leaving the turn and brakes lights alone but would like to replace headlights, fog lights, reverse lights and interior. I see multiple you tube videos on accessing the panel behind the wheel to access low beams. Do you access the high beams the same way? Thanks

[bwright657]

The xenons on the facelifted (06+) Z4s have one bulb that does high beam and low beam. There's a shutter that drops in and out to turn on the high beams.

The lower draw of LEDs will trigger a bulb warning light since the circuit does not see as much resistance as it normally expects. You can code the car to mask those errors. Check out this thread for more info.

When you're looking at bulbs, I would recommend going for newer versions of the original bulb type before converting to LED. I put a set of Osram Xenar D2S bulbs in my car and they made a huge difference. They also matched my upgraded DRL rings perfectly.

[rtpatter]

For the Osram Xenar D2S; those are only for cars with OEM Xenon's correct?

I have OEM halogen on my 06. Not sure how to tell what is facelifted or not?

I just would like to upgrade with plug and play for low/high/fog for uniformity but there doesn't seem to be an easy solution to this. Most of the LEDs i have seen said they will cancel out errors but I would like to hear from some one who has put in H7s and got them to fit without throwing error codes.

[chickdr]

Originally Posted by rtpatter

How difficult was it to replace reverse and interior lights? I am thinking of leaving the turn and brakes lights alone but would like to replace headlights, fog lights, reverse lights and interior. I see multiple you tube videos on accessing the panel behind the wheel to access low beams. Do you access the high beams the same way? Thanks

Very easy to do the lights in back. Just remove the plastic panel inside and you have access to the bulbs. Very cool how the sockets are done with no wires. Interior lights are also quite simple. Just pop the housing out and swap the bulbs. The headlights are a bear. You have to carefully remove two panels in front of the tires- the one on the back of the housing is really tough too get to - especially replacing it. (much easier if you have a lift and can remove the wheels).

If you have an 06 you are in the facelifted car. You can not put xenons into the halogen housings. You would need the xenon housings which are $$$$. I would hope the projector style housing you have would do a better job with LED's but in my experience putting an LED headlight into a halogen housing is less than ideal. Very scattered light pattern with some shadows/spots.

[rtpatter]

My previous experience putting LEDs in halogen projectors has worked great. My biggest concern now is finding H7 and H11 LED bulbs that will fit the housing and not throw codes.

[chickdr]

As someone mentioned previously- you can code out errors so you can fix that one. As far as fitting in the housings, that may be tricky with the fans they have on the back.

[pungo]

Originally Posted by rtpatter

Currently has non Xenon halogen bulbs. I have read a number of post saying that there are no good options and that it will cause dash light codes, beam pattern won't work with existing projectors, etc.

I am also confused by the projector setup in the E85Z4, are there not 2 bulbs in each canister low beam and high beam. Every where I look that sells LEDs seem to be selling just one set of bulbs for the front projector.

Just so you know, your Halogen equipped headlights are not projectors, they are reflectors, which when used with LEDs will scatter the light pattern and cause glare to oncoming traffic. Reputable sellers will list their LED bulbs for offroad use only.

[chickdr]

Originally Posted by pungo

Just so you know, your Halogen equipped headlights are not projectors, they are reflectors, which when used with LEDs will scatter the light pattern and cause glare to oncoming traffic. Reputable sellers will list their LED bulbs for offroad use only.

Having LED headlights in my Frontier which has reflector style housings I concur with this comment. While my lighting is better than with the stock halogen bulbs, it is still less than ideal with many light and dark spots in the pattern.

[SD ///M4]

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but my passenger side headlamp will occasionally go out and I get the light warning on the dash. If I wack the headlamp it will go back on. Maybe a bad/loose connection, but I thought that if I'm going to go to the trouble of pulling the wheel to go in and look at the connections that I might as well just upgrade the bulb. I'm driving the Roadster more often on warm summer nights and the light output is significantly reduced compared to my 2016 M4, so I'm hoping that upgrading the bulbs will help.

From the prior discussion in this thread, can I assume that my 2006 Z4 M Roadster has OEM Xenon bulbs?

bwright657, you mentioned that you upgraded to Osram Xenar D2S bulbs. I did a search on Amazon and there are several to choose from, is there a particular one that you would recommend?

You also mentioned that you upgraded your DRL rings. Any recommendations for those?

[bwright657]

I got the Xenarc Cool Blue bulbs. Here's a link: OSRAM Xenarc Cool Blue Boost D2S Xenon Car Headlight Bulbs (Twin) 66240CBB-HCB https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0771VZ353...86WRNHHWZTHVWB

For my DRL rings, pungo did the retrofit on my lights. PM him for details.

[SD ///M4]

Originally Posted by bwright657

I got the Xenarc Cool Blue bulbs. Here's a link: OSRAM Xenarc Cool Blue Boost D2S Xenon Car Headlight Bulbs (Twin) 66240CBB-HCB https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0771VZ353...86WRNHHWZTHVWB

Can't help but notice that the name is "Cool Blue", the package says "Hyper Blue", and that the Kelvin temperature is "up to 7000K". How blue are they?

I'm not interested in these if the lights actually look blue, I want a strong bright white light.

EDIT:
It looks like this is also a 35W D2S, has a lower K (6000), is a whiter light, but still offers "200% more brightness than standard".

https://www.amazon.com/OSRAM-Xenarc-...47276190&psc=1

[bwright657]

Compared to the stock bulbs, they are much whiter. But there is a slight blue tint in overcast conditions. But that's how other people see it. The light pattern at night just shows up white to me. It's certainly nowhere close to something you would see in the Fast & Furious movies.

There's a photo of my lights in my garage earlier in the thread and they look white. The best photo I could find with the blue tint is this one from Killboy at the Tail of the Dragon. The best OEM comparison I could make is the headlights on the face-lifted E92 3 series coupe or the face-lifted E89 Z4 headlights.

[SD ///M4]

Originally Posted by bwright657

Compared to the stock bulbs, they are much whiter. But there is a slight blue tint in overcast conditions. But that's how other people see it. The light pattern at night just shows up white to me. It's certainly nowhere close to something you would see in the Fast & Furious movies.

There's a photo of my lights in my garage earlier in the thread and they look white. The best photo I could find with the blue tint is this one from Killboy at the Tail of the Dragon. The best OEM comparison I could make is the headlights on the face-lifted E92 3 series coupe or the face-lifted E89 Z4 headlights.

Ah, I forgot about the previous photo! That doesn't look very blue at all.

I'm on the Osram site right now and they say that the "XENARC NIGHT BREAKER LASER is the brightest OSRAM xenon light."

I downloaded their catalog and there is a side-by-side comparison of these two bulbs. The Night Breaker bulb offers a warmer light (only 20% whiter than "standard"), but more distance (up to 250M compared to the Cool Blue being "standard" distance), and more brightness than "standard" (200% more compared to the Cool Blue 20% more). "Standard is defined as "minimum legal standard".

I think that this is the one that I'm going to go with. About the same price (Night Breaker is ~$1 less) and returnable at Amazon if I'm not satisfied. They'll be here on Wednesday. Hopefully, it won't be in the 90's later this week...

Catalog: https://media.osram.info/media/img/o..._2019_2020.pdf

[pungo]

Originally Posted by SD ///M4

EDIT:
It looks like this is also a 35W D2S, has a lower K (6000), is a whiter light, but still offers "200% more brightness than standard".

https://www.amazon.com/OSRAM-Xenarc-...47276190&psc=1

Just so you know, there are a tons of counterfeit bulbs being sold out there. I've seen them burn the reflectors on the projector housing since they can run hot and put out a ton of UV. The counterfeiters do an excellent job of duplicating the bulb and packaging. The real manufactures have resorted to putting security codes on the package to check against their web site for verification. Unfortunately. I've seen too many fake bulbs in peoples headlights which have caused damage.
https://rennlist.com/forums/987-foru...ake-bulbs.html

https://www.driven2automotive.com/bl...e-osram-bulbs/

Here's a good reference for the color and lumens specs for popular bulbs:
https://www.theretrofitsource.com/hi...cecategory:asc

Burnt reflector from counterfeit bulbs

[SD ///M4]

Thanks! I'll definitely keep this in mind when I get the bulbs and I'll check to see if they're legit.

[SD ///M4]

pungo I just found that there is a page in the OSRAM catalog that I linked to above that talks about their Trust Program and shows how to verify that you have legit OSRAM bulbs.

Here's a link to their web page with the same info as well as an online verifier: https://www.osram.com/am/the-trust-program/index.jsp

They even have a YouTube video about their Trust Program:

And they also have a somewhat amusing video on the Night Breaker bulb:

And lastly, here's an interesting video I found by a very interesting Romanian guy that compares 4 OSRAM bulbs, including the Cool Blue bulb linked to by bwright657 above and the Night Breaker Laser which I ended up buying:

Another video comparison, this time by The Retrofit Source, a company linked to by pungo above. They compare several D2S bulbs for Lux output, including both of the OSRAMs mentioned above. The Night Breaker bulb comes in second, bested by a Philips that has about 100 Lux more output but is also about 35% more on Amazon. TRS's price for the OSRAM Night Breaker bulb is about 45% more expensive than Amazon, and their price for the Philips XV2 bulb is about :

[pungo]

Originally Posted by SD ///M4

EDIT:
It looks like this is also a 35W D2S, has a lower K (6000), is a whiter light, but still offers "200% more brightness than standard".

https://www.amazon.com/OSRAM-Xenarc-...47276190&psc=1

Originally Posted by SD ///M4

Thanks! I'll definitely keep this in mind when I get the bulbs and I'll check to see if they're legit.

It's interesting how the Amazon link you provided yesterday, the seller was "Auto Light Industry Inc." while today, with the same link, the seller is "PrimeAutoLamps", very strange.

[SD ///M4]

Originally Posted by pungo

It's interesting how the Amazon link you provided yesterday, the seller was "Auto Light Industry Inc." while today, with the same link, the seller is "PrimeAutoLamps", very strange.

Not unusual for Amazon for items that they don't stock themselves. As experience has shown, they'll sell anything from anyone. The price is now also $0.66 less. I'm looking forward to verifying my bulbs when they arrive tomorrow. If they're legit, I really don't care where they came from. If not, I'll return them to Amazon and notify them that they're not legit.

Long, related story: Almost two years ago I bought some Samsung Buds+ from Amazon. My wife liked them so I ordered a pair for her. About 10 months later, my buds suddenly wouldn't pair with either my phone or my tablet. In trying to pair them I discovered that my wife's buds would pair with her devices and my devices but my buds also wouldn't pair with her devices, so it was clearly the buds. They had a 1-year warranty, so I contacted Samsung. After sending them to Samsung twice and getting them returned without being repaired and no real explanation, I finally called them again and said why won't you fix my buds? They said that I did not have a U.S. warranty, I had an International warranty, and they couldn't fix them. I called Amazon and they said that they would contact the supplier for me.

I went back and looked at the orders and they came from different third-party suppliers. When I looked at the packaging and instructions, I noticed that mine were in both English and Spanish but my wife's were only in English. I looked up the location of my supplier and found out they were in Texas, in a city close to the Mexican border. They contacted me, apologized, and offered to send me a prepaid label to return them, and they refunded my money in full. I ordered a new pair that was stocked by Amazon and they've been fine.

I suspect that the company sold me goods that were either intended for or procured from Mexico with a non-US warranty, which is why Samsung USA couldn't help me.

TL;DR: I bought goods from Amazon via a third-party supplier that were not intended for the U.S. market.

[SD ///M4]

My OSRAM Night Breaker Laser Xenarc D2S bulbs arrived today from Amazon. I scanned the QR code on the box with my phone and it took me to OSRAM's mobile verification website. It asked me to verify that the numbers on the base of the two bulbs in the package matched the numbers shown on their website. They did, so I responded yes and got the following message:

"Your OSRAM product has been successfully authenticated
The packaging label code matches with your lamp data.

You have bought (an) original OSRAM xenon lamp(s). You can now rely on the highest OSRAM quality."

So it looks like they're legit! I'm planning on installing the bulbs within the next few days. I'm going to try the on-the-ground first method first with the front wheels turned, as I've seen in some videos, and if that's too much of a pain then I'll just put the car up on my QuickJacks and remove the front wheels for better access.

[Steeler]

I have the halogen lights on my 04.
Is it worthwhile upgrading the bulbs or just go straight to angel eyes?

Anyone have any comments on halogen bulbs that they were impressed with.
I don't want the ricer blue lights just more intense white with longer beam range.