Driving back to West Palm from Orlando well after midnight this weekend, I had a good chance to see how my and high beams worked and I think I could have used better range! Between the high & low beam seemed to be somewhat of a dead space that I think a pencil beam driving light would fill. Does anyone else have this opinion and what is the fix? On various websites where upgrades are sold, I see projector FOG light replacements available but see no DRIVING light available that I think would do the trick! Anyone? :yikes:
Do you have halogen or oem xenon lights? Are the lights aimed properly? How are the headlight lenses? If you have xenon are the bulbs the same color and what color is that?
In reply to all above messages...I have the OE HIDs. I thought all M3s had them so I didn't mention that. The lenses are totally clear (new lenses), as far as in town and local highways they are great and seem properly aimed if not a bit high on the low beam. I let them balance themselves. The highway surface on I95 from Orlando was usually black so no reflective surfaces except for the paint on the sides. I believe that the bulbs are OE (4800 ??). I've read about the 6000 which is supposed to be a whiter light than the OE 4800's. Is there a replacement DRIVING bulb that uses the current foglight ports?? Is there a better (brighter) high beam bulb that other members are using?? I don't want to add any exterior mounted lights. TIA
The absolute best highbeam bulb is the Osram Rallye bulb.
They are basically an H9 bulb, on an H7 burner (socket), therefore output is much better than a standard H7.
Short of HID's in the fog light housing (which would be totally mismatched because they don't have projectors), get some 2500k yellow Nokya bulbs.
6000k will have slightly lower output than a standard 4300k bulb, perceived mostly because human eyes are more sensitive to the warm color spectrum.
Look at the streetlights on the highway in particular, and you'll see this theory in practice.
IF you want the best xenon bulb you can get the Osram CBI bulbs which are 5000k pure white temperature with the most lumen output. Cost is $200 though...
If not, you can get Philips 85122+ bulbs from TRS for $95 shipped.
No one can tell him that he has burnt bowls maybe. I had this problem on my 330 the xenons were **** b/c the bowl were so badly burned. these are the zkw i believe. On my 03.5 M3 they are much better, not sure of its the later improved ones or b/c its lower mileage and they arent burned yet, but i see alot better.
I believe only ZKW headlights had that problem. M3s have AL lighting which does have that burnt bowl problems.
OP, Just replace the Bulbs as Solidjake suggested. Xenon bulbs loose the brightness as they get older.
OP, do what SolidJake suggest (swap your bulbs to CBI or 85122+). If you want to drastically improve your high-beam, you can code your car so that the inner halogen lights and foglight come on when you use your high beam....
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