BMW E46 xenon bulbs

toyotacelicagt4

toyotacelicagt4

toyotacelicagt4

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Hi

I'm looking on eBay to get myself a pair of d2s bulbs incase any of mine go but am a little confused on what colour rating the factory fitted bulbs are. Does anyone know what the factory fitted colour should be?

Thanks
 
Why are you buying bulbs 'incase' yours go? Failure of genuine HID bulbs is very rare - buy some when it goes wrong not before, seems like a waste of money?
 
In my E46 they had lasted 10 years afaik and were still working when I sold it - 2 of these years they were on in daytime or nighttime. In my E92 they're still going strong 7 years later.

Dont buy some for the sake of it, but if u do, DO NOT buy cheap eBay/crap no name ones. They wont last 5 minutes.
 
Thats what I thinking but most local places sell a single bulb for £60+ so I thought I'd get a pair and keep as a spare set. I've always carried a spare set of bulbs in all my cars so I thought I may as well do the same for the Beemer
 
Gaygle said:
In my E46 they had lasted 10 years afaik and were still working when I sold it - 2 of these years they were on in daytime or nighttime. In my E92 they're still going strong 7 years later.

Dont buy some for the sake of it, but if u do, DO NOT buy cheap eBay/crap no name ones. They wont last 5 minutes.
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I've seen a pair on eBay from hids direct for £16 a pair
 
toyotacelicagt4 said:
Thats what I thinking but most local places sell a single bulb for £60+ so I thought I'd get a pair and keep as a spare set. I've always carried a spare set of bulbs in all my cars so I thought I may as well do the same for the Beemer
Click to expand...

But you've not always had factory HID lights - so just because you used to always carry spare bulbs doesn't mean you need to now.
 
toyotacelicagt4 said:
Yeh I normally do but should a bulb go a day or two before the mot then at least I'll have a spare rather than having to go somewhere like gsf or halfords for a replacement
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What if a control arm goes a day before the MOT?

Your foglights are designed to be used when your bulb blows anyway, so thats the safety side of the thing sorted.

There really is very little justification for carrying spared HIDs.

Just buy the cheapest nastiest d2s you can find and keep that in the glovebox.

like this

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-REPLA...arts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item483cfe2722
 
toyotacelicagt4 said:
Don't get carried away. Nothing wrong with carrying a spare set of bulbs, rather be safe than sorry
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If you've got conventional filament bulbs, sure. HID's, no. It's only recently you've been able to buy cheap Chinese copies from Ebay - when your car was reasonably new the bulbs were hundreds of pounds each, do you really think they are designed for you to carry spares 'just in case'? :p

I wonder what the actual probability of a HID bulb failing exactly 2 days before a booked MOT is? :p It's as likely that the ballasts will fail rather than the bulbs, do you carry spare ballasts?
 
toyotacelicagt4 said:
I've seen a pair on eBay from hids direct for £16 a pair
Click to expand...

£8 a bulb - which wouldn't be bad for a bog standard halogen bulb, but a xenon bulb? Ha. Fitting dodgy crap bulbs can be costly - IIRC it can cause problems with the ballast/ignitors. Not to mention that they're fairly hard to get to and on one side, IIRC, it takes the removal of the snorkel, and airbox to get to - so not exactly a roadside job. And £8 bulbs WILL, repeat, WILL go often. And will probably be a different colour to the other side. And will take longer to warm up.

Get a single (why would you get two?!) genuine Osram one (OEM) for about £30 if you're that bothered about it (from a decent source - lots of fakes around i believe).

Or you could just see if one of the bulbs goes (which they probably won't) and then order an Osram bulb if one of them blows?
 
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