quick question about OEM xenon retrofits

You can't really realistically fit a non Xenon equipped car from stock, with all the running gear to make it truly legal. Headlight washers ok, not that hard on paper you might think, but try wiring them in to your factory loom with missing wiring and modules for it. Then the auto level sensors are not going to be easy nor cheap to get hold of nor install as your chassis/suspension mount points for them may not even exist fully. Any time I have seen this discussed on a forum the same answer usually prevails... it's not feasible to do. There are levels you can go to where it's not so bad though if you are happy to still be running illegally.

Generally speaking, installing either an aftermarket HID kit into reflector type headlight housing designed for halogens is dangerous and glaring for other drivers. You can mitigate it slightly by using the R type HID bulbs which are meant to be for reflector housings, but the results are almost always similar and can be pretty dangerous.

If you have a projector headlight housing then you can potentially get some good results. Depending on your car, you could swap to that housing from a higher spec model with factory ballasts and bulbs and wire them up to work but with no washers or auto level sensors. It can be tricky and all sorts of things may need doing even to just get them functional as a light depending on the complexity of the car. i.e. Whether it runs day light running lights, fog lights, if the car would need coding to do it, if modules need swapping out. All sorts.
Instead, with a projector housing you can more safely run an aftermarket HID kit if you want to, which tend to be more plug and play as are designed around just taking the feed for your dipped beam bulb, and going straight into the ballast and igniting the lamp. Even this though can require modifications to the bulb holder and headlight cover backs to get them working safely. If you have manual level adjustment, this will continue to work as before. Depending on the quality of the projector lens on the vehicle, this can give results similar if not better than factory. Take for example your old Mondeo op. These could come spec'd with headlight housings that were either the reflector type, or, the projector. If you got the projector housing, you could still get cars spec'd with halogens inside these. The same housing though could also come with Xenons if spec'd.

Projectors tend to give much sharper/defined cut off as they have a shutter inside which can be static or movable for bi-xenons to physically block the light at a given height. This is because with the projector lens, they would otherwise be too intense and dazzle other drivers.

TLDR = you'll still be illegal with anything other than stock xenon equipped but you might still find yourself passing an MOT if your car could have been spec'd with xenons and the MOT inspector believes them to just be the stock ones, and they are aimed well. My after market kit in my factory projector lenses look stock, but if you open the bonnet you will see the ballast in non stock location. I therefore swap to Halogen bulbs once a year for the MOT which takes under half hour to swap back for both lights.
 
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how much are second hand hid units for an e91 going to cost, compared to car price ?

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I'd nearly forgotten we'd discussed his hid predilection when he purchased the mondeo ....

If the Titanium X doesn't come as standard with xenons then really its not worth anything extra over the titanium. I'd have to hunt out xenons anyway and neither come with bodykit like the sport. I can understand the sport commanding a small premium over the others but its the same 2.0 litre diesel engine so £1k premium for the bodykit but surely no more than that. Quite how a 2 litre diesel sport is the same price if not more than the very rare 2 litre ecoboost sport I really don't know.

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Research is looking promising. I'm getting good indications that the existing manual thumbwheel level adjustment will work with the OEM xenon housings on the same wiring, and all I need to do to wire in the xenon units is splice into one ground wire in the loom to create one more ground pin connection. I also have the option of splicing into a second wire to control the bixenon shutter when high beam is activated.

Only issue now will be whether any coding is needed to eliminate warning lights.

I wonder if there are any legit complete LED housings available for this model as an aftermarket part.
 
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