I read in another thread that there are two metal rods or pieces that hold the bulb in place in the assembly, but that was for the halogens. Do you know if the same is true for the HID bulb?

 

Hi, I am writing to you to be polite as I have no idea if there is or not. But we have a lot of members that know everything about the X and I am sure someone will answer your question very soon. I would like to know myself.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv96P...eature=related. It sounds BDG. Most people who ride in my 2.5L think is sound wonderful, one comment, nice it's about time you can hear your engine.

 

JaguarKnight is correct, eBay bulbs are a scam. I got burnt several times buying bulbs from the auctions on eBay. Remember You get what you pay for.
Also, lighting is one of those areas where you don't want to go cheapo, brakes the same. Get the best you can afford

 

Doesn't the parking light/high beam take a Hologen Bulb, also, I noticed looking into the high bean light there is a small bulb in the upper left side on the drivers side. I noted these go on when you turn the switch to the first position, the other bulb is for blinking and high beam. I have a few friends that have HID bulbs and there is no additional bulb for high beam. on a Acura a "shade" comes up to expose the rest of the HID's light for the high beam.

 

All Advance Auto stores must have stupid people working for them. The local one here a clerk told me the same thing and went as far to say Jaguar didn't offer HID lights for the X Type. I asked him to take a walk out to my car and I open the drivers door and showed him the Hazmat sticker, as HID's contain mercury a very dangerous substance. He finally admitted he was wrong. Advance auto had the best price around here for the bulb $100.

Auto Zone $110 for the D2

 

Adam, yes, the high beam is a halogen bulb for all X-Types (HID and standard lighting systems). But, like with anything, you want to upgrade, the options are there. Then the question comes down to what your limitations are. Me, I'm looking to pull out the halogen high beam bulb and replace it with a 50W HID bulb (requires modification of the factory wiring harness due to initial current draw). I don't use the high beams all that much, but it would be nice to have the additional light when needed as I do live out in a semi rural area and deer are abundant. Granted, I am sure lights like that would really hurt if I passed you with them on.

As for the side lights and the marker light in the high beam housing, yes, those are halogen (incandescent) bulbs. But, again, if you want to upgrade them, there are options. I personally installed some 10MM LEDs in my car. Cheap upgrade and the light now emitted is a pure white vice the yellow the incandescent bulbs tend to be (when compared to an HID). There's pics of this effect in my gallery. No one makes an HID bulb to fit the side lights. So, your options are limited.

 

I know this is late (just joined today) but I have replaced bulbs in my 2003 X-type with bulbs from NAPA auto parts and from the Autozone. Seems that they were between $9 and $12 each. The one on the driver's side was very difficult to work on (as I opted not to take off the front bumber) and took over 90 minutes. the one on the passengers side took less than 15 minutes start to finish. Hope this helps, and saves you some money.

 

These bulbs weren't HID I assume.

 

Hey guys. I finally got around to addressing this with undivided attention. For stock HIDs (mine was in a 2003), you need bulb part #85122 which is the Philips OSRAM D2S 4300K bulb. It's the exact same one as the OEM that you will replace. I found it on eBay from a great seller for a seventh of the price, yes 1/7 of the price of the dealer cost, here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...K%3AMEWNX%3AIT

I did finally figure out how to get the bulb out of the assembly, in case anyone else is as clueless as I was you have to twist the black round piece holding the bulb in place counterclockwise. The bulb will pop right out. Then just position the new one with the slots lined up and twist the black piece over it clockwise. Pretty simple in the end, but made harder to figure out in such a tight space. Thanks for everyones help. Saved myself a couple hundred dollars once again, thanks to the forums.

 

Sorry for the late response.
No, the bulbs that I got at NAPA auto parts were not HID.
Can't afford those at the current time.
Don

 

So Thermo, my X is not likely to have HID connectors. Given that it's an early X-Type and she doesn't have the silver sticker in the door jam. Do you know of a thread on this upgrade, or, could you talk about it some?

El muchos gracias!

 

I have the HID bulbs, sticker on the door jam and all. The high beam lights have a halogen bulb plus a small bulb in the upper corners or each. I did a search on auto level and found what I needed. Also, I have been told that HID bulbs have long life span. A friend who owns a 04 Acura said he has never changed a HID. He works the 4pm to 112pm shift or the 12am to 8am shift so he uses his headlights al ot. Thanks.

 

Here a site that seems to have reasonable prices for HID converstions

http://www.wholesalehid.com/?gclid=C...FQY65QodmT2aDA

 

Patterson, if you are looking for the easy upgrade to HIDs, then it takes nothing more than buying 2 new headlight assemblies for HID equipped cars. The plugs are the same and all the HID components are inside the headlight housing. Granted, stand by to pay for that convenience. Normally around the tune to $800 a headlight assembly new from the factory. If you can find some used ones (look out for the ones with the broken support brackets inside), you can probably get it down to around $200 for the pair.

If you are looking to upgrade the bulbs to HIDs using a kit off of an aftermarket seller, that is an easy upgrade. I have done it for a member. The hard part of it all is having to remove the front bumper cover (20 minutes to undo the bolts, 20 minutes to slide it back on). The rest is pretty self explanatory assuming you know something about wiring. If you need me to go into more detail, let me know.

 

Last nite my son, my mechanic buddy and I took a look at my auto level headlights. We discovered the right lamp didn't cycle when turned on, I thought it did, but I was wrong. My mechanic buddy took a screw driver and turned the adjusting screw clockwise and counter clockwise about 3 times and a 1/2 turn in each direction and then with a small hammer he taped on the back of the lamp enclosure in the area where the electric connection is. You know what? We turned on the headlamps and both cycled. He said he has done this before as this feature is more common then I thought on American cars. I went out for a short spin and both headlights looked good. He said he has found that the servo motor seize up sometimes and this fix was purely something he tried after he ran out of other options.

 

What I don't like is the color of the small bulbs that keep the hi-beams a glow while the headlights are on. Mine are very yellow. I polished all the front lens', including the fogs with a buffer and Blue Magic headlight restorer goop, $6. The results were pretty good, removed all the yellow color and grimy grit on the lens faces. It looks much better, but the high beams still glow yellow cuz the little bulb is yellow.

I'd like to change just those little yellow bulbs for now.

I haven't looked, but my car prob. has halogens, and they appear very white, my headlights do. They're just not as bright as HID's. Throwing less lumens but still white. But not blue white.

I want the 'running lights' to be white like the headlights Do these lil bulbs come in the D2S bulb kit?

 

Except that the light output might actually be less than stock and still blind oncoming drivers as well as dazzling drivers in front through the rear view mirror.

That comment applies only to a conversion performed on reflectors originally used for halogen and converted to HID.

There are two reasons for this. First, usable light output drops as color temperature goes up from 4300K. Second, the optics of a halogen system are not designed for HID. You get lots of scatter and bad focus.

The accepted authority for this seems to be:

http://danielsternlighting.com

From my experience, a car with a well aimed halogen system on low beams can be driven at 80mph without discomfort. I won't say "not overdriven" because it may well be that the range on low beam is overdriven and someone will chime in with "at 80mph, with a range of X feet, you only have Z seconds reaction time". But, it does not cause anxiety to run at those speeds on low beam.

HID might be a great technology, but even on cars with stock HID systems, it is really bothersome when they are aimed high. Even worse when being overtaken by someone who does not know the difference between high and low beams, or that daytime running lights are not automatic headlights.

A conversion might look great in terms of lighting colour, but it could be harmful to the driver and oncoming drivers. So, the choice could boil down to a driver wanting "the best lighting" or "the best looking lighting". The two are not necessarily the same and may be mutually exclusive.

The site above has a very interesting H7 bulb. Probably the best high performance H7 bulb available on the market.

 

When I went to price out what HID bulbs cost, I never ran across a bulb kit. I think you have to find out what size the bulb is, to me it looks like a ordinary bulb ie 1157 1057, I could be wrong. The high beam is halogen bulb as far as I know. As you I am not impressed by the light those small bulbs give out.

 

Patterson, if you want your running lights (the small bulbs in the high beam housings), you need to find some LED 194's to put in there. Those will fit in the factory housings and give you the pure white light like you are after. Just be careful pulling the old bulbs out and putting in the new bulbs as the supports for the headlights are not the strongest and one push too hard can break the mounts. Then you are more than likely buying new headlight housings. Just some FYI.

There is another option (the one I took) which was to buy some 285K MCD 10MM LEDs and then I used those in the factory housings. It requires a little bit more work since you have to add an inline resistor, but for $1 a side, hard to beat the price and nowing now I will never have to replace those bulbs again due to their long life (50,000+ hours). If you are interested in this, let me know.

Plumsauce, I don't argue that using HIDs in a housing not designed for HIDs can be a bad choice. But, if you get the correct lights and can mount them properly (in the focal point of the reflector), you can get a pretty good return that isn't bad for the other drivers. Is every reflector capable of this, NO. But, the ones for the X-Types are probably about the best that you can hope for based on the round reflector that has no lumps in it.