[BOSSBMW]

Hi all,

I've been researching this topic for several weeks now. I have found very mixed reviews from individuals on these forums regarding the reliability of aftermarket lighting.

My issue:

Almost 2 years back, a gentleman, who is now banned from this site, got me for $1100 for a set of OEM Xenon's which were converted to work on my '06 325i. The "conversion" included aftermarket ballasts, and resistors. Since my car is an '06, its notorious for puking out errors regarding lighting, and as such, I've been plagued with lighting problems ranging from the Xenon's intermittently failing to illuminate, to errors on the dash, to lately, lights dying completely during night driving (dangerous!).

Needless to say, I've had it. I've spoke with various educated and highly renowned lighting experts on this site and see four options which could potentially provide a solution.

1. Eff this, toss my headlamps up in the classified section for someone with a 2007+ to buy, and go back to my halogen lamps.

2. I had one gentleman offer to fix my headlamps with OEM hardware, but at a great cost, $700+ to be exact. I have a hard time with this after already paying $1100 for these.

3. Buy a coding cable and code my car for Xenon's and remove the bulb check's and see if that remedies my situation?

4. I've been turned on to the Umnitza complete headlight assemblies, which people have had success coding to work properly on MY'06 E90's.

To be completely realistic, I don't want to go back to halogen, and I also don't want to dish out $700 to have my headlights reconfigured to work in my '06. Truth is, no one can really speculate what the real issue is, and just tossing $700 at the problem without first being able to diagnose turns me off to this.

The Umnitza product, I was offered a very reasonable price of just over $500, ready to plug-n-play. Very tempting, a set of sweet looking headlights that are already wired and ready to rock... However, one side of me agrees with the many on here who say "... this is what happens when you throw a set of $500 headlights on a $30k car", but I've also seen testimonials from other users who have had great success with Umnitza.

Let's use this thread to settle the debate. I'm torn. Money is tight right now, but I won't drive my car until this issue is resolved. I'm not willing to put any of my family at risk.

[raj55]

Go back to halogen head lights with Philips extreme vision bulbs (I know you mentioned that you do not want to go back!) and having used them for a few weeks now, I am very impressed. It won't cost you much to try this option and who knows it may be better than your HID retrofit that does not work. It does not cost much tyo give it a try. My two cents.

[NiVeDh]

I know someone who went through this whole ordeal after buying lights from the first "gentleman" that you mentioned. He ended up converting the lights back to OEM (ballasts, etc.). I then coded his car to recognize the Xenons - it's not just bulb checks.

[BOSSBMW]

Yeah my car was never coded for anything I'm wondering if this is the cause of all my problems in the first place, seems like before I spend any more money I should buy one of these $70 cables and code my car for Xenon's and remove the bulb checks and see if that fixes the problem...

[NiVeDh]

Originally Posted by beneliezer

Yeah my car was never coded for anything I'm wondering if this is the cause of all my problems in the first place, seems like before I spend any more money I should buy one of these $70 cables and code my car for Xenon's and remove the bulb checks and see if that fixes the problem...

That should do it. Check out the threads on halogen-to-xenon retrofit.