DEPO Xenon inner lights (Halogen High Beams) yellow and on most of the time)

[stunt]

Greetings!

New member here. I just picked up a '02 4.6is. It has 133k miles on it, but appears mechanically sound and the exterior and interior is in excellent condition. Here's a shot of it:



First thing I'm doing is swapping out the original headlight units. They were faded very badly as seen here:



Being a 4.6is, it came with Xenon lights from the factory, so I picked up a set of DEPO LED Halo lights w/ auto level CCFL of ebay.

This is the exact model I received:



The only issue I ran into was when I moved the Xenon ballast from the old units to the new ones. The hole for the ground wire to the Xenon bulb base was not drilled on either unit. I'm talking about the wire the red arrow in the picture below points to.



No big deal, I drilled out the missing hole in each unit and was able to complete prepping them for installation. Here's one of the new units ready to be installed:



Fit and finish was good, the only thing I noticed was that when I installed the small trim pieces below the headlights, there was nothing for the center tab to snap onto. As a result, the center of the trim piece bows out a little (red arrow)



Not a big deal I suppose, but with everything else being just about perfect, I wonder why they screwed that up.

I then proceeded to wire up everything, which went smooth with the included harness. I have *not* yet connected the remote on wire to an interior light. I have just connected battery, ground and tapped into the red/while ignition wire, which feeds the included relay.

Test 1: Ignition off, Parking lights only - Pass



Test 2: Ignition on, Lights off - Fail (why are they halogen high beams on and in an ugly yellow color?)



Test 3: Ignition on, Lights on - Pass





Test 4: Ignition on, High Beam Lights on - Fail (the Xenon's are fine, but those inner halogens should be flash to pass only, right?)





Any idea what's going on?

I had a 2006 E60 before this one, and the inner halogen high beams would only come on when you flashed to pass...

I suppose I could just unplug the inners, but I don't think this is how they should be working, or is it?

Thanks!

[Zulu95]

In the 2002 model year the high beams perform the role of daylight running lights. Hence the yellow inner light. Dealer can program to turn it off.
Only the later vehicles are flash to pass as they have Bi-Xenon lights. Earlier X5's have to use the regular high beam lights.

[Ricky Bobby]

Disable the DRL, and get yourself some Hoen Xenonmatch 9005 bulbs (or are they H7 in the depo units?) to match the color of the HID for high beams. On pre-facelifts the halogens are high beams and the xenon stays on when the high beam is turned on, but the fogs will switch off when high beams are on. If you are getting the dealer or someone to code off the DRL for you, have them code it so the fogs stay on with the high beams too!

Also, I would recommend wiring the angel eyes so that they operate in the parking light position, there are some how tos on the forums to tap into a wire off the LCM i believe.


Nice looking upgrade, what are you doing with the stock Xenon's? If they are built in early 2002 they may be desirable to members on here who would like to open them up and put angel eyes in the stock units.

My 2003 has permasealed headlights, if you look at the top on the stock units you will see a small circle with the year and month of build. Let us know what that is.

The fading and oxidation is easily restored with a dual action polisher and some compound, mine looked like that when I bought my truck and now they look good as new.


Hell I may be interested in buying your stock housings if they are still good and can be opened!

[stunt]

Thanks, appreciate the explanation. That makes perfect sense. I'll get them programmed as you suggest.

Yes, the originals are in great condition from what I can tell except for the fading. I'd be happy to sell/trade them.

So I was looking at my tail lights as well, and from what I can tell, the outers have been replaced already. Can you guys tell from the pic below if they were replaced with aftermarket or OEM?



The inners are original (and very scratched looking), so I was thinking about replacing them with fresh '06 OEM ones.

I initially wanted to go LED tails, but based on the little research I have done so far, they seem to all be made in China and are of questionable fit and finish compared to OEM.

And if the outers are indeed facelift OEM ones, I think I'd be better off going with OEM inners and match the outers.

Or did the inners not change with the facelift and all I need to do is to polish them to match the new outers?

[stunt]

Originally Posted by Ricky Bobby

Disable the DRL, and get yourself some Hoen Xenonmatch 9005 bulbs (or are they H7 in the depo units?)

They are H7s. I'm annoyed that they didn't include color matching H7 bulbs in the first place. Sheesh.

So I want some 8000k H7s to color match, right?

[Oivind]

Youre outer rearlights are replaced with OEM pre-facelift lamps. You can tell by the "dots" on every other horisontal line. Facelifted lamps do not have these "dots"

If 8000k bulbs is what you have to match, I would replace them with the stock bulbs as 8000k have poor lumens. If you want bluer/whiter light, get some Osram CBI's.

Can you please post a pic of the output/cutoff of the Depo's from 5-10 meters away?

[X5SND]

It looks like you have something funky going on with the drivers side cutoff...

[stunt]

Originally Posted by Oivind

Youre outer rearlights are replaced with OEM pre-facelift lamps. You can tell by the "dots" on every other horisontal line. Facelifted lamps do not have these "dots"

Ok, I guess I'm real confused then. I thought pre-facelift had orange turn signal like in the pic below of a '02:



Facelift came with the 2004 model year, right?

If 8000k bulbs is what you have to match, I would replace them with the stock bulbs as 8000k have poor lumens. If you want bluer/whiter light, get some Osram CBI's.

I'm just looking for whatever color temperature would be the closest color match to the Xenons. I'll look into the Osram's. Thanks

Can you please post a pic of the output/cutoff of the Depo's from 5-10 meters away?

Once I get the car back together and can drive it out of the garage, sure! I'm the process of doing the valve cover gaskets right now.

[Ricky Bobby]

OK HERE IS WHAT YOU NEED TO DO:

1) If you have 8000k xenon bulbs in those Depo housings, sell them and put your stock bulbs in. You are losing light output like crazy, if your stock housings were clear and you swapped them you would notice a huge difference, your stock units would be throwing more light on the road.

If you like the blue color keep them, if you want something a bit more crisp white than the stock bulbs I recommend 5000k Morimoto bulbs (quality is better than Philips), they are pure white and 50 bucks a pair from The Retrofit Source.com

Then you can get xenonmatch Hoen bulbs for the high beams to match the lows.


For your tails, you have SPORT PACKAGE pre-facelift tails, those are the exact tails that came on the 00-03 sport package and I had the same tails when I bought my truck. The ones with the orange signal are for non-sport package cars 00-03


I have the Sonar LED tails from ebay and I can attest to their quality being pretty damn decent, I wouldnt have kept them if they weren't good quality. I wanted an upgraded look but I also replaced them because the taillight sockets corrode every few months on the faulty stock design.

Get the LED tails, and get some Solaris Invisibulbs or some Stealth Bulbs for the turn signals to get rid of the egg yolk look.



The 04-06 facelift tails the only difference is they are crystal clear in the turn signal and reverse sections, and they are probably more expensive than new LED tails, with a still faulty design for the tail light socket unless you do the mercedes tail light socket mod to them.

Any other questions let me know! Did you get a chance to check the build date of your stock units yet?

[Oivind]

White turnsignals was an Option before the face-lift was released in 04.
Think maby the 4.6 was the first to be fitted with clear turnsignals..

Osram CBI is a Xenon-bulb with 5000-5500k color and still have the lumen/light-output of the stock 4300k's. Other "blue" bulbs loose lumens the bluer they get, so a 8000k is just a sacrifive of good lights in order to get a "cooler" color. And they are also probably poor-output china-bulbs.

I look forward to the cutoff pic as was considering these lamps for a long time, but went for a Retrofit with Hella EvoX's with E46 shrouds and CCFL's. Did a "facelift-ish" look on the turnsignals with frosted vinyl inside the glass.