Even though the design of the E92 BMW is aging incredibly well, technology does move on, leaving older tech looking rather prehistoric in comparison.
One of the worst offenders for aging a car is the lights. The yellowish tinge of halogen bulbs is quite old hat, with the cold blueish tinge of LED, and even laser on the i8, now being the norm.
As my 335i is pre LCI (Life Cycle Impulse), it was fitted as standard with halogen 'angel eye' daylight running lights, looking noticeably yellow against the xenon projectors.
- Standard halogen H8 bulb part number: 07119906503
- BMW blue halogen H8 bulb part number: 63112359505
The most frustrating part of this job is figuring out which LED bulbs to buy. Pre LCI cars use a H8 HB3 bulb, simply searching for H8 HB3 on eBay will return a million listings, all claiming their LEDs are brightest. However, my main focus was finding something reliable, I had an absolute nightmare with bulbs on my E46 330d.
After scanning through reams of eBay listings, I found one by lightec-autostyle-ltd offering 2 years warranty. The bulbs were rated at 20W each, putting out up to 1000 lumens from the 4 CREE LEDs (be careful with wattage, most listings advertise the combined wattage of both bulbs). Most importantly they were rated at 6000-7000k, meaning they'd emit a bright white light.
I was really impressed with the packaging of the bulbs when they arrived. The box was professionally printed, and the bulbs are kept safe in a bespoke foam insert.
Removing the triangular cap on the top of the lamp reveals the angel eye bulbs.
The access panel isn't exactly the largest and most ergonomic of designs, getting your hand in as well as seeing what you're doing isn't an option. Removing the bulbs is fairly easy though, just twisting the bulbs through 90° releases them from the lamp housing.
My bulbs were pretty burnt, so they are likely the originals that came out of the factory.
Contrary to popular belief, LEDs do actually get hot, hence the large heat sinks. Cheaper LED bulbs will have little or no heat sinks, beware of these they will likely fail rather quickly.
Unlike the halogen bulbs, the LED bulbs also have an additional bit of wiring that needs to be fed into the lamp housing. Fortunately, the aperture is just about big enough. Learning my lesson the hard way over the years has taught me to always test parts before fully fitting them, so I plugged a bulb in and fired it up.
Everything seemed to be working ok so I cracked on with reassembly. One side done, I moved swiftly onto the other, now with a bit of learning on the best way to go about it.
Before moving onto the other lamp however, I paused to take a comparison photo, showing just how much difference the LEDs made. It also gives you an idea how bright the LEDs are vs the halogens. Excuse the missing kidney grille, I upgraded the angel eyes to LEDs part way through the front bumper fix.
In my opinion, the LEDs look far better, really bringing the car up-to-date. Encouraged by how good the LEDs look I pressed on with the other side.
The colour match to the xenons is also surprisingly good, you can also see in the image below how bright the LEDs are at night.
All in all, this mod is definitely worth the money, it achieved exactly what I hoped it would, freshening up the front end and knocking years off the car.
Let me know what you think in the comments below, did you go for a different wattage? Don't forget to subscribe using the Follow by Email widget in the top right for plenty more content to come!
This was exactly what I was looking for. Thank you for the well detailed and helpful information!
ReplyDeleteI was thinking of trying the blue halogens but the brightness of these makes them more appealing.