I have a 2007 X-Type. Love it. Outer passenger-side lighting has gone dark (high beam and low). Manual states that illumination is H1. Does a single bulb provide high beam and low beam lighting on the outer lens? I understand that differences exist between inner and outer lighting and driver and passenger sides. I would like to go with xenon lighting if possible, halogen would be 2nd choice. What would the forum recommend (brands/products, manufacturers, cost etc). Also, any tips on replacement would be appreciated

 

Brian, I think you have a few things confused and hopefully I can straighten things out some.

First off, the X-TYpe uses 2 separate bulbs to do high and low beams. Now, this is where you need to look at what your car was equipped with from the factory to decide what your options are. The first thing that I would say is to look in your driver's door jam and see if you have a silver sticker there that says something about "This vehicle equipped with High Intensity Discharged (HID)........." . If so, then you have HID headlights straight from the factory for your low beams. If you don't have that sticker, then you have more traditional filament (halogen) headlights for your low beams. Your high beams are a standard filament style bulb from the factory. Now, whether any of these bulbs are halogen or xenon is really irrelevant. Both standard (halogen) bulbs and HID bulbs come with either gas in them. Xenon is a halogen gas. The Xenon is in the bulb for various reasons based on the type of bulb that you have. Now, how the bulbs work is a completely different subject and I am not going to get into that at the moment as I think we have other issues to deal with/answer first. So, figure out what you have and that will give you a starting point for what can and cannot be done and what expertise that may be needed.

You mention that both headlights (high and low) are out on the one side. Do you know if this is because of the bulbs being bad or did they both fail at the same time which would more than likely mean that you have a wiring issue. If you are suspecting bad bulbs, I would atleast swap bulbs from one side to the other to verify that the housings are good and they will light a bulb. If this does not get the bulbs lit up, then let me know and we can troubleshoot the wiring to get you something to start with before investing money into bulbs.

Now, a side note. Be gentle with your headlight housings. Unless you have recently rebuilt your headlight housings, odds are the plastic supports are going to be brittle and you push on them too hard, you are going to break them and put yourself into a lot of other repairs. So, if at all possible, remove the headlights from the car before replacing bulbs. if you have small hands, you might be able to do it, but remember, this may come at a cost. If you have bearclaws like me, just admit defeat before you destroy something.

To get you looking ahead some, if you are looking at xenon headlights (which I am assuming you are really meaning HID headlights), then you need to know if you had HIDs from the factory. If so, you simply need to find a new D2S bulb with a 35 watt rating (YES 35 WATTS!!!!!! NOT 55!!!!!!). HID bulbs are more efficient in making light and therefore are not as high power. If you have the standard bulbs (ie, H1 bulbs) for your low beams, then upgrading to HIDs is going to require some electrical ability as it is not a straight "plug and play" install. It is going to require splicing some wires together to make it work. Lucky for you, the X-Type can handle HIDs without any electrical upgrades. If you want to see what all is involved in this upgrade, look up my name and HIDs and I have explained this to numerous people. You will also find some useful information about some other things related to HIDs that you will also have to contemplate.

If you are meaning the filament bulbs as the halogens, then you are talking about some of the fancier ones. Halogen was added to make them more white, get a bit more light out of them, and also help improve their useful life. As you may be experiecing, even a 55 watt halogen/filament bulb runs hot enough that it will burn up the wiring inside the headlight, leading to the bulb not working. I mention this as there are H1 bulbs out there that will give you more light, but they are 65/75/100 watts in rating. This higher watt bulbs do give more light, but htey also give off more heat and you will find, that will result in a lot of other issues with the X-Type headlights.

So, lets see if we have you on track and we can get you what you are after.

 

Hey Thermo - I happen to have that HID sticker in the doorjamb of my car but I definitely do not have HID headlights on my car. While it's I suppose *possible* that someone retrofitted non-HID headlights into it at some time there is no accident history or other obvious potential known event that may have caused that to occur, so the sticker is not 100% foolproof.

 

I appreciate the detailed assistance. I am unfamiliar with this type of lighting and it shows.
There is no sticker on the door jamb. Just tire and restraint stickers so I am assuming that I have standard filament for high beam and likely halogen filament for low beam.
I'm not sure whether they both failed at the same time or not. I seldom drive after dark and have never used the high beams however, the previous owner may have used them and high beam was burnt out when I took possession in 2016.
I like your idea of swapping driver side bulbs to passenger side as a test but access to driver side isn't easy and risk is high so I think I'll give it a pass. Instead of getting into nasty repairs, I would rather spend a few dollars on replacement bulbs to see whether they work and then have the wiring checked if they fail.
The reason that I prefer xenon to halogen is personal experience with indoor household lighting. Xenon tends to run much cooler than halogen and lighting quality (in my mind is superior). I have yet to decide whether LED is a step above fluorescent or a step below. Are xenon filament bulbs available for high beam AND low beam? Product recommendations?
I would appreciate any tips and advice before attempting to replace. Maybe a video or two as well.

 

Bear in mind changing to Xenon requires you to buy and use a HID kit. If you want to try just brighter bulbs try using Sylvania and Osram bulb selection sites.
Mine =
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x-type-x400-14/mod-lights-179148/

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x-type-x400-14/i-have-some-questions-about-hid-lights-223105/

The "high beams = brights" remain halogen (i.e. regular "white" colored). The outer beams are HID until you stalk click high beams.

 

brianwalker, since you have filament bulbs for lows and highs, I would recommend getting Sylvania Silverstars. Without trying to go after some exotic bulb or find some limited production bulb, these seem to be the best you will find that is easy to get. Most people that get them love them for their white light and increased brightness. This is a personal thing, but I would say to buy all 4 bulbs (2 for lows, 2 for highs) and replace all 4 bulbs at the same time. Otherwise, 1) it may look a little goofey having a yellowish bulb on one side of the car with a white bulb on the other, and 2) if one bulb has failed, the other side is probably not to far behind and you will be replacing it in the near future anyways.

 

All Cattle, I am sure people have swapped between the two and in your case, someone probalby didn't realize what HIDs meant and when they couldn't find them in their local auto parts shop, they converted over. That is about the only logical story I can think of unless they rear ended someone and fix the problem themselves by replacing the headlights and grille.

 

Sage advice from both of you. Much appreciated

 

This is an interesting conversion:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/s...ojector-59730/