HID Xenon upgrades

[scruffygit]

Hello all.
The headlights on my '97 VVC were looking very sad and misted up. I'm pretty sure they'd have failed the next MOT in Feb and the light output was poor.
I managed to find a very good condition 2nd hand set on a well known auction site at a good price and duly shelled out some hard earned! They arrived and looked good so I then decided to strip them down for cleaning and to have a look at the reflectors etc.
One was perfect the other was just showing the start of degradation of the mirrored finish below the dipped beam bulb, but was still very good.
I've read that the damage to the reflectors is caused by heat and so started to look at HID upgrades because the Xenons apparently run cooler than normal halogens.
After a bit more investigation I decided to go for these.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251610010684? ... EBIDX%3AIT

I purchased the 4300K / 35W kit with H1 bulbs and I've got to say they are superb. The quality is excellent, ballasts are metal boxed, connectors and cabling are of good quality and they work really well! The supplied brackets for the ballast units fit nicely on the rear of the slam panel and make a very smart job of it when fixed with stainless self tappers, rather than the supplied nuts and bolts.
Light output is excellent although I've got to pop to my local garage just to get the headlamp alignment checked. Installation is very simple, even more so with the lights out of the car! It would have been quick as well had it not been for me being a bit OCD about everything on Lily-Roo (she's white and Roo was our old dog who sadly left us in July), so I ended up cleaning, waxoyling, replacing rusty nuts and bolts etc, etc whilst the bumper was off and as well as this I must own the cleanest set of headlights in the western world!
I must point out that I have nothing to do with the seller of these kits but I'm just very impressed with the kit. Hopefully now I'll be able to see at night and the headlights will last longer.
Hope the info is of use to anybody considering this upgrade.

[adrianclifford]

Hi there, over the years this has been a regular item of concern and remedy (F headlamps). There are the for and against camps (having a TF I'm now neutral.

Back in 2006 or so I fitted a set of HID's to my F for the same reason as you. There were criticisms and accusations because of the blinding effect given by these lamps, some said they were good so debate followed for months (if not years), however that's healthy for a forum

The bottom line was : are they legal ?

In a way NO because they are not factory fitted and do not have self levellers. I checked with the police, they said there's no problem with them as long as they pass the MoT, which they did although the beam pattern is barely legal due to the different cut off points. I spoke to my insurance company, same question, same answer but the DoT still say after market fitted HID's are not road legal.

You must inform your insurance company (same with any mod really).

In the years I had them fitted, I was never flashed at once and I don't think they were offensive and for me, much safer.

[scruffygit]

Hello.
If they are correctly setup by a garage I don't see why they shouldn't be OK as that should ensure that oncoming drivers are not dazzled.
If they pass an MOT then as far as I'm concerned then they are safe to be on the car and as long as I'm not flashed then the Xenons are serving the purpose they were intended for. Safer night driving and making the MGF far more usable on today's roads.
I'll let my insurance company know that they are fitted. Thanks very much for the advice.

[Plezier]

Thank you as I also have this problem looming due to having two MGF's. Have a set of lights all stripped down with murky reflectors so may just see if I can manage the conversion myself.

[adrianclifford]

There's no need for garage set-up as you replace the bulbs within their existing lamps, so as long as you replace them correctly and securely on their lugs you should not affect the alignment.

[robbie1003]

Hello.
If they are correctly setup by a garage I don't see why they shouldn't be OK as that should ensure that oncoming drivers are not dazzled.
If they pass an MOT then as far as I'm concerned then they are safe to be on the car and as long as I'm not flashed then the Xenons are serving the purpose they were intended for. Safer night driving and making the MGF far more usable on today's roads.
I'll let my insurance company know that they are fitted. Thanks very much for the advice.

be clear on this that hid retro fitted to standard headlights is a mot failure, this is documented on many forums, hid standard fitment has to have headlight washers and or auto adjusting of the beam height, both of which isnot fitted to a mgf. this isnot saying it will fail as with all mots it depends on how hard the tester looks at your vehicle which in my experience is very vague at times but never the less is a failure in the eyes of mot regs.
the issues with these bulbs is not just the beam but the light that scatters this is why projector lights are more suited to hid bulb use rather than the mgf plastic refractor that does scatter quite a bit, I agree that the standard headlights are poor, not as poor as my old x type headlights but that's another story.
I will add there are hid kits that are good and some that arnt, its all down to quality and correct focal point compared to the light it is fitted in. I do have 55w hid kit fitted (should have gone for the 35w that i had fitted to jag as the 55w is quite bright) to my f, yes the light is improved and the beam is perfectly formed and im conscious of where the beam is going but there is a distinct brightness beyond the beam, I certainly know which is my car in the dark but isn't in my view blinding, im prepared to be pulled by police and possible fine but its not often its driven in dark so the odds are slim. funny that it did pass its last mot at ford main dealer (mot had run out 3 months before so wanted to get it in quick) with the hid on but I was in rush to get it done.

[Plezier]

Thank you for the clarification.

I will finances permitting get some though to fit to those poor units and I will go for 4300k ones and see how they perform.

[Dell]

I spoke a length about after market HID`s with my friendly MOT inspector earlier this year about how the recent MOT changes affect the legality of fitting them, his reply was that they had been instructed to fail them if the colour temp was too high & that the 6000k we have fitted are borderline.

[Charless]

In the same way that the bumble bee can be mathematically proved to be not able to fly, these things are not road legal.
I have had a pair fitted for over 130,000 miles with no regrets and never a slip on the MOT. They make all weather night driving infinitely safer. They have saved more than their cost in fuel alone and I still have decent reflectors because of the cooler temperature inside the headlight body. I am also still on the original alternator after 187,000miles - and batteries last about ten years.
I must say the price of that kit seems less than a pair of some 'super' incandescent bulbs alone - it is the proverbial no-brainer!

[scruffygit]

I'll need to get the headlight alignment checked as I fitted the HID's into a replacement set of second hand, but good reflector headlights. This was in an attempt to preserve the reflectors as the new HID's are lower wattage at 35W so they run cooler. I did compare the physical position of the adjusters on my old lights to the positions of the adjusters on the new and tweaked them to suit, but that's obviously a very rough setting!
The 4300K temperature bulbs seems to produce a white light rather than the higher temp bulbs that can look blue sometimes.
Scruffy

[Rob Bell]

Completely agree with everything that has already been said with respect to HIDs. They are not technically legal, and the MoT regulations have changed - but whether the MoT tester spots the retrofit is another question: so long as you have a good beam pattern I suspect that suspicions will not be aroused and the car will pass.

To be honest I am getting fed up with the need to replace reflector bowls. My re-silvered ones (Geoff Smith rather than Dual Metallising) are now needing to be replaced - and cooler running bulbs may be the best solution long term.

Anyone tried LED bulbs? I suspect that they are not quite good enough yet, but I'd be interested to hear from people's experience?

[Plezier]

I see in Novembers Safety Fast on P50 a small article on LED headlight bulbs to replace the old H4 bulbs. These are Dipping ones so have both main and dip in them.

[scruffygit]

Just in case anybody is thinking of this upgrade here's a few pics of how neatly the kit fits on the MGF.

Headlight looks normal with no clue that HID's are fitted.

Both ballasts on the rear of the slam panel

Offside install. The ballasts can be slid out of the brackets and removed easily.

Nearside install - you have to cut a 25mm hole in the headlights dustcover and fit the supplied cabling and rubber grommet.

Scruffy

[Rob Bell]

That certainly looks very tidy - and the whole kit costs less than some high-performance halogen bulbs!

How are you finding the colour of the light? 4300K is pretty white, but shouldn't be too blue?

[scruffygit]

I haven't taken her out at night yet as I want to get the alignment checked first, but looking at the headlights when they are on and the car is parked on my drive the light is a nice crisp white light. The white light looks very much like the Philips Xtreme power bulbs that I have fitted to my everyday car. (I suspect that these are very similar to the Osram night breakers etc etc).
The kits have gone up a bit in price, I got mine for £25.19 - they were on offer, but now they are £27.99 but still very good value. What isn't evident from the pictures is that the cables and connectors on the looms that are supplied are nice quality with the cabling having external braiding and the connectors have rubber grommet type thingys! These should help to stop the ingress of damp etc into the plugs and sockets.
I've also read that the full sized metal ballast boxes are generally more reliable than the slim line plastic cased ballasts due to heat dissapation. But time will tell!

[Rob Bell]

Not too much heat under the front bonnet of an MGF, so probably not too harsh an environment for the ballasts in our MGs in any case.

[Plezier]

Damn that's a clean under bonnet. I won't dare show the condition of mine what with all the mud on the road around here

Will have to wait a week or so before I can purchase as just brought plugs, leads, new cap and arm and an Apiro enclosed filter Inducytion thingy..........

[robbie1003]

The 55w kit i have cost £9 off eBay, the previous 35w one i bought for my x type was £22 for the same make but even at that it was cheap.think mine is 4300k and very white, the blue just stands out more and sent as effective. Might be cheap kit but because the one for the jag worked perfectly it seemed daft to go for something more expensive. Ok it took two weeks to cone from china but worth waiting for. I have seen and had to sort out poorly fitted kits on customer cars, the ability of some people to not even get the bulb in correctly not to mention unsafe connections is quite worrying, no wonder the kits get bad press.

[scruffygit]

The kit that I got came from the UK but the seller is in China. I think they just have stock over here in a warehouse.

[scruffygit]

Well just an update. I've had the beams aligned at our local MOT station. The mechanic commented that the lights are modified and normally would have self levelling fitted. He didn't seem that bothered and commented that if I do get flashed at all then pop back and he'd lower the beam a bit as he'd adjusted it to the max permissible height!
He didn't seem that worried and I've had no probs so far after a quick run, and I can see stuff!