Hi Everyone,

I wanted a little more pep from my high beams, so about a year ago I replaced the standard H7's (55watt 1500 lumens) with rally spec bulbs (80watt 1800 lumens), I didn't want to go any higher wattage wise as I didn't want to melt either my reflectors or my wiring loom, HID kits not being suited to high beams and LED's being very hit or miss I left it at that.
Anyway I took another look a few weeks ago and spotted a set of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01I4Y...&psc=1

So I thought I would take a punt as they're hardly expensive and the reviews are good. Now as I mentioned before I didnt want to be drawing too much wattage so as these are listed at 60watt I bought a set, when they arrived I found out that they aren't actually 60watt and 7200 lumens - thats the TOTAL output, each bulb is 30watt and 3200 lumens, not really a deal breaker but a bit of a marketing ploy I think.
Regardless, when they turned up I was impressed with the build quality and promptly whipped one of the headlights off to fit them, imagine my disappointment when they didnt fit
After a quick bit of googling and ebay trawling looking at various different adapters I came across these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/361741331866?_tr...EBIDX%3AIT

When they arrived a few days later I tried again. (really sorry I didn't take any pictures of the build process now haha) When fitting you can remove the retaining collar from the bulb and then you're able to slip the adapter over it and then put the new assembly back together. When putting everything together I found that the small silicone washer between the collar and the bulb prevented me from getting the assembly back together. However it serves no purpose so dont worry about removing it.
Within the headlight I losened the two torx screws that the retaining collars slide under, twisted the bulb into place and then re-tightened them locking everything in place.

Now I specifically didn't take pictures of the bulbs in action as they literally never come out right nor do they do the bulbs any justice, suffice to say they are AMAZING! The output is phenomenal, even more so when you compare them to the stock bulbs.
I can (and do!) highly recommend the bulbs but you will need the adapters. Beam pattern is pretty much unaffected - other than being over twice as bright!, there's zero warm-up time and while it goes without saying that these bulbs are illegal for road use - as they're being used as high beams and at no point (so long as you remember to dip them) will they be on when there is oncoming traffic, I see no reason why you would fail an mot or be pulled for using them.




As a final note, after learning that most of the sellers of these kind of lights give the total output for two bulbs and with hindsight being the wonderful thing it is, I think I would've bought a set that had a higher rating.

Possibly a set of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Car-Parts/Green...rds=h7+led



Long story short - If you do any country lane driving buy a set

Last edited by Socast on Tue Dec 20 2016 11:57am. Edited 1 time in total

Last year I changed my Defender's complete Halogen units over to LED's.................... difference is night and day Even on dipped beam in day light they reflect back off road signs yet I never get anybody flash me (maybe they are all too polite around here to do that!). I had problems with the age of the wiring in the car and continually blowing the full beam lamp on the drivers side and the local indie suggested replacing the entire units with sealed LED units. Before, night driving on the halogens was awful as they had an output equivalent to a candle on each wing, now I'm not at all worried about seeing more than 20ft in front of the car on full beam as I can light up the road like it's daylight. 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

TBH I think anyone who does any back lane driving would find these beneficial. Even new sports, disoc's etc. The high beams are all halogen

I found the Adaptive Bi-Xenons excellent on the country lanes in Central Scotland when I had my TDV8 RRS and both Evoques, pity my current car doesn't have them - I have no issues with the non-adaptive headlights in my 2015 HSE Dynamic though, excellent spread and brilliance on main as well as dipped. 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

Socast wrote:

Beam pattern is pretty much unaffected - other than being over twice as bright!, there's zero warm-up time and while it goes without saying that these bulbs are illegal for road use - as they're being used as high beams and at no point (so long as you remember to dip them) will they be on when there is oncoming traffic, I see no reason why you would fail an mot or be pulled for using them.

Bulbs aren't road legal unless E-marked, and to be E-marked they have to meet the brightness and wattage criteria, so no, high wattage bulbs aren't legal. Excellent in a good pair of lamps though.

Socast wrote:

Even new sports, disoc's etc. The high beams are all halogen

Nope, unless they are halogen units, they all have bi-xenon units also (as does yours). The RRS2/L405/late D4 do have poorer lamps by losing the halogen beam though.

Bear in mind, the LEDs will look significantly brighter than they actually are because of the colour temperature, and you will disrupt the beam pattern - there is no way to avoid that, even in the best of LED retrofits. Don't want to put a dampener on it, but I can guarentee you, the improvement to vision won't be as drastic as it looks to be - you need a narrower beam to really see far.  Visiting from DISCO3.CO.UK
2006 Discovery 3 TDV6 Auto HSE Zambezi Silver

Wasn't aware that new motors were using xenon as high beam, I thought thay weren't used in that capacity as they don't like being flicked on/off and have a warm up time ?
I guess if you're using the reflactor to direct the beam then the light isn't having to warm up/ suffer from power cycling.

Most of the issue with retrofitting LED's is due to different reflector housing etc. so what will work well in one car might be pants in another.
The set I bought work well in the RRS housing, since fitting and doing some driving with them I have noticed a wider spread of light, but vision distance is definately improved. So while I agree that you need a tight beam of light for distance it's not the bulb that focuses said beam.
Granted while the reflectors are designed to collect light from a 360" light source, these particular led's do emit 360" light but they do have 'hot spots' and also throw more light forward out of the headlight (not off the reflector) than a standard bulb (hense the beam spread), so again, I agree that there is bound to be some changes to the beam pattern, but view distances are undeniably better, these aren't a cheap leds purely to change the colour temp and have a similar/usually lower lumen output, these have over twice the output of standard halogens, the temperature of the light is 6k which while whiter than the xenon's isn't actually that noticable.

I'll take a couple of pictures in the next few days or so. it will be with the new bulbs rather than a side by side comparison as I can't be bothered to swap the bulbs round.

If there's anyone on here from Somerset in or around Taunton it would be good to meet and then we could do a side-by-side video or something.

The xenon units use a shutter to block the upper part of the beam, so yes the bulbs are always lit. It's not just new vehicles but yours too.

The bulb affects the focus like so:



You see the LED is wider than the flament, but more importantly, it sits further out so it is not positioned right on the focal point of the reflector - the tiniest change can have a big effect. Once this is accounted for, the increase light output takes a big hit in intensity as light is dispersed. Apart from that though, after a point, beam is actually more important than intensity - as your eyes adjust, it's the balance of light that matters.

6000K should show as a very big difference vs the approx 3000K temperature of halogen (the light from the latter being superior in a couple of ways), though it will be blended with the xenon beam too. It's an extremely deceptive matter because we can see the colour temperature well but can't judge brightness well at all (our eyes were not designed for consistent measurement but for adaptation).

I have aux lamps on my Disco, so my factory lamps (adaptive xenon) are put to shame anyway!  Visiting from DISCO3.CO.UK
2006 Discovery 3 TDV6 Auto HSE Zambezi Silver

The positioning of the led's on the kit I bought are very close to that of the stock bulbs fillament, but as I said earlier these bulbs work well in the RRS, in another vehicle they will no doubt suffer.

There are kits available that allow you to adjust the depth/focal point of the led's within the headlight but they are twice the price and aren't as powerful:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/LEDONLY-Aluminum-...B01ARHX6FQ

I took a risk on the kit I bought as they were cheap and as my experience with led's so far has been that they tend to last for a few months before the resistors burn up and they stop working, so I didn't want to be spending a fortune on something that will last a few weeks.

When I mentioned the temperature I maybe didn't explain myself very well. While it's obvious compared to the stock halogen bulbs the light blends well with the xenon's so it's difficult to see where one light beam ends and the other begins.

No LED will truly fit the focal point though, as they have to be mounted on something and the thickness of that alone places them outside the focal point.  Visiting from DISCO3.CO.UK
2006 Discovery 3 TDV6 Auto HSE Zambezi Silver

Uprated bothe the headlights and spots on my defender last month, when the spots are on makes the sports light look like a pair of candles. It's like driving in daylight..
 2008 G4 RRSport TDV8 current
2009 TDCi 90 current
2018 Discovery 5 HSE lux current
1994 Dakar current

Do you put the on when they come alive Camelrock  2003 BMW M5 - 5 Litres of V8 Optimax Slurping Goodness in Carbon Black

2013 SDV6 HSE Black Edition- Orkney Grey with Ebony & Ivory. LR Facelift RAI, Genuine G4 Expedition Rack, 4x Warn SBD-160 Spotlights, Warn 9.5XPS Winch, Mantec Underbody Protection and Sump Guard, Full Easy Lift Suspension Module, LR Light Guards, Light Force HTX230 Hybrid spotlights, 18” Compomotive PD1881 on 265/65/18 BF Goodrich KO2, ARB fridge, TuffTrek awning 😎

Seeing as how Socast didn't take photos or owt when he replaced his bulbs with LEDs, thought I would fill the gap as its a bit fiddly...

So, I bought THESE BULBS which are the 2nd set that Socast has fitted & deemed slightly better... Also need to get THESE HOLDERS to get the bulbs to stay in place.

Remove existing bulb and unplug.

First things first, take the new holder



and remove the two little wings that stick out. I clipped them off but you can bend them in/out instead. That gets them the right shape/size.

You will then see that the bulb already has a holder of its own - standard H7 fitting.



You need to pull that holder off. Its a bit stiff but easy enough. Keep the orientation of the holder in mind as you want to put it back on the same way. You then take your new holder and, put it on the LED and then replace the original holder. You'll see that theres only one way to do it properly. Should look as below.



Looking inside the headlight unit, you will see two torx screws. These are what hold the bulb in place but will need loosening a few notches for the new holder before tightening up again. The other thing to note is that the two screws are not diametrically opposed - know that now and you may well save time trying to line up the holder flaps with the screws...



Put the new bulb in place and tighten the screws



Last thing to do is to put the OE light connector onto the LED's. You will notice that the LED has a +/- imprinted.



Put the + spade into the green wire of the OE connector - like this. Not totally vital as you shouldn't damage the LED if you get it wrong, it just won't work & you'll have to faff about swapping it around again.



That's it.

Light wise, will have to wait until its dark but took a couple of pics of the car in the early evening.





Liking the look & it doesn't half make the spots (turned off here) look yellow!

They look excellent, thinking I'll be treating myself to a pair of those! Tried them out in the dark yet,?
Thanks for the great write up! 2006 Java Black HST Supercharged

Had a little drive last night and wow, all I can say is very bright! In fact so bright that turning on the spots didn't really add much other than light up the trees 200+m away... Previously there would be a marked improvement when I did so, including lighting the trees.

So I guess the next step is to replace the spot light bulbs with LEDs and see what that does

A good and cheap lighting upgrade