[quote=temeculaguy]On the stereo discussion, my sled didn’t come with the upgraded stereo, it’s decent but not great. I see that as a needed upgrade. The cnet reviewer says my particular year and model has too many speakers and too little power. As soon as I figure out what I am going to do with the headlights, I’m going to address the sound system.
can any of you guys help me with my headlight dillema. Seems the previous owner didn;t want to spend the 1k for the xenons (can’t blame them) but they put aftermarket ones in. The ballast and wiring takes up so much space that they got rid of the rear cover to the light housing. Well, that is there for a reason, it keeps water out. I ordered new back covers and plan on drilling a hole and running the wires through, then waterproofing the igniter and wires that need to live outside the cover because of space restrictions. But something is wonky about it, every time I move it, I get one of the angel lights going out, I reposition it and it comes back on, I’m assuming the connection is bad and I need to cut and reattach clean ends. The dealer of course says that I should remove the whole thing and go back to halogens. The technician said that using anything other than oem electronics is bad for bmw’s. I know damn well that even oem electronics are bad for bmw’s, but aftermarket electronics are bad for bmw dealers. I was going to do that but after driving twice at night with the xenons, I’m in love. Has anyone ever dealt with aftermarket xenons? I can’t even find a brand name on them. It will be cheap to switch back to halogens, but now I don’t want to, yet I’m tired of having to switch the lights on and off or jiggle the wires to make the angels work. It’s a good thing I don’t have a lot of hobbies and can take apart my headlights and read bimmerfest blogs to fill my empty life. I was warned, these things are like women, they are beautiful, you will love them and they are a pain in the ass all at the same time.[/quote]
TG… Regarding your headlight issues. Here’s the thing.
Most aftermarket HID conversion kits are crap because, well most of them just consist of a bulb and ballast…Sticking a bulb in an existing halogen housing might not yield the correct beam pattern nor the appropriate cutoff, and almost all aftermarket kits do not offer any sort of auto-leveling… It’s for this reason why almost all HID aftermarket kits are illegal for normal road use….
That said, here’s a few links if you’re interested get BMW stuff.
1. Stealth Auto: They are up in L.A. Have a bunch of lighting/accesories/etc at reasonable prices. Sign up for their email, they give a coupon for 20% every so often.
