Hello all:


Newbie here. I have been looking around for headlamp upgrades. The HIDs I have in the car now are just not bright enough. I upgraded the BMW that I traded in for the Jag to OSRAM bulbs and it was a really nice difference. Not quite as nice as LED, but still much better than the old 2011 HID technology.


Has anyone upgraded their headlamps to LED?


Thanks in advance,


D

 

I think most people find the stock headlamps plenty for their purposes. However, there are a few people looking into upgrading the headlights to the new LED units on the 18MY+

 

Are you talking about the entire assembly, or just the actual lights?

 

Interesting. I have never found my 2014 HIDs to be inadequate.

 

Maybe it's because I am so used to seeing all of the LED headlights out there. Huge difference if you ever see your (our) HID beams next to LED beams.

 

I agree, never found them to be inadequate either.

I don't think there are many options out there, if any... to upgrade to LEDs on our cars besides the new OEM units. They would require swapping the whole assembly and probably some odd electrical bits/calibrations too.

 

I think my HIDs are outstanding, but that may be because two of my other vehicles still are using incandescent. I do have LEDs in my '76 LandCruiser, but they will knock squirrels out of trees at night and force oncoming traffic into the ditch.

 

With properly aimed lights the LEDs are almost spiritual. I agree the HIDs are great lights, but once you spend anytime behind a car that has LED lights and you will never look at your HIDs the same again. At this point you will transcend to a higher level of enlightenment that you never believe could exists.

 

Yes, I think ours and all HIDs are nice. You can see the difference from LEDs and HIDs like you can see the difference from halogen bulbs and HIDs. I'm going to do a little research and see if there are any compatible LED setups available for our cars and I'll contact OSRAM and see what newer technology HID bulbs are available. They really did make a huge difference on my BMW.

 

I think HIDs on this car are superb, if this is not enough you probably just want to install a search light.

 

Thanks for the sarcasm, but I am pretty sure we are all entitled to our own opinions. If LEDs weren't superior, Jaguar and other manufacturers would not be changing to this technology. I was only asking to see if there were others on the forum that had experience in this.

 

Hahaha oh but manufacturers do things like this all the time when its not superior.

LEDs are popular in headlamps these days because people think LEDs are cool, and because they are easier to integrate/more reliable. Its a selling feature and a warranty reducer, but not superior in terms of light path and light output when comparing equal systems.

 

If I'm not mistaken, the HID lights pivot when making a turn to show the driver what's ahead during the curve. The LED lights don't do this, yes? Also,. The LED is the newest
" in thing " with auto manufacturers, it's the trendy head light for now.

 

I understand what you are stating, but I respectfully disagree. I see other cars with LED headlights next to me (passing on the highway, or at a stop light), and the LEDs are whiter and brighter than HID lights. The only reason I even found out about them is because I researched it when I noticed cars that had them. I just don't understand why people on here seem to get offended about my comments. Didn't mean to offend anyone.

 

The housings do move slightly like you stated. From what I understand this could, or could not be a problem with LED lights because, depending on the ones you choose, they could have heatsinks, or fans on the back of the lights that could get in the way of the moving mechanism. It could be that the OSRAM HID D1S bulbs are our best best to improve the wavelength (up to 6000k) and hence whiter light of our HID lights.

 

I'm not offended, don't worry. Just trying to offer my professional knowledge as an automotive engineer. Its hard to compare one brand of cars to another. If say BMW is using an extremely high voltage system with a large package of LEDs compared to a relatively low power HID setup of another car, it will of course be brighter. But you won't be able to fit that kind of a setup into the OEM buld housing, so its irrelevant on your car, and you're limited by the OEM power supply system, unless you're planning on doing a complete tear up of the headlamp system, housing and circuit.

There are actually regulations in place for how bright headlamps can be in certain locations of the road. This causes the OEMs to cheat the system by blocking light to those locations while actually sending more light than is allowed to the rest of the field. Some manufactures are better at this than others, and messing with their existing systems can cause mixed results depending on the setup of the headlamp. Bit of an industry secret there.

 

Owners of the current generation R8 were pretty vocal about the weakness of the new LED headlamps. So LEDs are not always implemented well, even from the manufacturer.

My vote would be for the 5500-6000 Amazon $40 headlight replacements. A cheap and easy compromise.

 

There are probably some inferior factory LED set-ups out there. But, from a totally subjective "viewpoint" (the equivalent of a "butt dyno" I know), I've been pretty impressed by LED headlamps (e.g., BMW's M cars). Hard to compare without knowing specs and performance measurements, but a decent LED headlamp set-up edges out most HID headlamps IMO.

Though I've enjoyed running Osram's CBI bulb in other rides, I've found the mercury-free D3S bulb (the F-Type OEM bulb spec is D3S, not D1S) rather compromised both in color and lumens compared to a CBI D1S bulb, let alone the OEM D3S bulb that came on my Jag.

Given my general disappointment with the OEM D3S light output, I'd love to retrofit a LED headlamp system. However, with the fussy nature of electronics and the cost-efficient challenge of designing a decent aftermarket LED lens assembly for a vehicle with low production numbers, I'll keep my CBI's and wait for Jaguar to design a LED system.

 

Here is a comparo between LED & HID on a Porsche. Be nice to do one on our cars!

 

A good LED headlamp is way better than a good HID headlamp. I've been retrofitting headlamps since 2005 and HIDs do not come close to LED in terms of performance. There are shitty LED like the ones on the new Jaguar XF, and there are amazing ones like on the new Tesla Model S.

The LED headlamps implemented on most luxury cars will produce light in the direction of turns. They typically do this by turning on another LED light which points in the direction of the turn. Our currents HID lights do the same thing, but its done by actually swiveling the lights in the direction of the turn. Both techniques work equally good, but the LEDs outperform in terms of light output in the turns. The new Jaguars also work in a similar fashion by turning on another LED when turning into corners. Are our current HIDs some of the best around? Yes. Are they as good as the new LED technology? No (in terms of lumen output LEDs will outperform).

The only thing I don't like about LED is you don't get that crisp cutoff line you get with HIDs. That flicking blue, purple color is gone. Since LED use a different optic pattern that projectors.

Anyone who tells you a good quality HID is better than a good quality LED just has no clue what they are talking about.