I'm not sure It's even possible?

I don't mind a wiring change unless it's just impossible?

I won't be changing another HID headlamp after my attempts on this one. This is just too stupid and very difficult to do. Nothing should be made this way.

So I may need to take it to shop to get this done now but if I have to pay to have the bumper cover removed I'd like to ditch the HID headlamps completely at the same time if that's possible?

 

Yeah the HID setup on our cars sucks goat *****. It has poor light output, it's fragile and requires half a day to change a bulb.

I had the bumper off 3 times already, by now a third of the retainers on the underbody are broken or missing and the plastic of the bumper cover is broken in several places near the holes.

A while ago I was so annoyed by the dim HID low beams that I did some research into either upgrading to 55W ballasts (stock are 35W) or converting to halogens. The problem with doing either is that the stock harness is only made to handle 35W. Halogens are typically 55W-65W so you'd be running a risk of burning up the harness. Same thing goes for the upgraded 55W ballast option. In addition

I wonder if anyone has found an ingenious solution to this problem. For now I've given up and use the halogen high beams as much as I can ... they're so much brighter than the stupid HIDs.

 

Must be somthing rong with your lights alignment or eye sight or something , as my HID,s are awsome ! I hardly use high beam.

 

If a tap for more power can be found then using the original power from the harness for the 35W bulbs can be utilized to simply operate a switching relay. What I wonder is if the entire halogen units lenses and all can simply be bolted mechanically into a car that's received these HID units originally?

Changing bulbs would still be a relative PITA but it would be a 1/2 hour per side PITA with the much better bulb socket design of the Halogen bulbs.

This is such an utter disaster of a design.

Cars have way too much equipment stuffed into smaller and smaller confines and perhaps there are worse ones than the S-Type out there but this the isn't first difficult as hell maintenance issue I've had. It's also that much worse on a R because of the additional equipment for the supercharging system.

I love the look and how it drives but I hate ownership and maintenance for this car which looks like it will doom this car for me.

Fitting that ignitor on the back of the bulb was even worse than getting the bulb seated and locked in which wouldn't have been nearly as difficult if you weren't trying to do this deep into a plastic tunnel looking at it upside down and reversed in a mirror.

With the igniter it's a square box that is hard to manipulate, align and orient properly with it's even more idiotic socket design. This is partially because the box makes it hard to handle and orient in such a confined space. This lighting system never should have fitted to this car given its original design constraints. I bet the engineers said no no no no ... but marketing won the day. You can shoehorn in a lot of stuff but that doesn't make it a good idea.

It's even more fun in 90F+ temperatures with high humidity to boot.

I think a better fixture can be fabricated to secure the bulb while orienting it in the socket and latching those spring clips. But I frankly am terribly dubious about being able to then attach that ignitor. It's damn tough with both of them in hand completely out of the car!

Being able to know that the box is oriented properly L&R and T&B is part of the problem so another fixture to help with that is needed. I think making that requires a machine shop though.

Damn this is all so idiotic.

In the end I need a much simpler and better car but once again I have to fix this before I can sell it. Otherwise the car presently looks gorgeous and is in terrific shape.

I wonder if there's way to fit a halogen bulb inside this HID fixture if one supplies a new power lead? Sounds like a near impossible task ...

Those goat ***** sound like a preferable task right now ...

 

Could be that the landing perches have broken. Yet another reason these units are pure crap.

 

Well I did several things that improved the light output which is why I had the headlights off the car so many times:

1. Fixed droopy headlights
2. Restored "milky" lenses using the sanding + UV sealing method - great fix BTW, my lenses are perfectly clear 18 months later
3. Replaced HID bulbs - twice. The originals were simply dim from old age, then I tried 6000K and 3000K bulbs.

All of these fixes together have improved total light output considerably, to a point where they're acceptable. Still not as bright as the halogens in my wife's Toyota but OK.

There's nothing wrong with my sight, the whole design around lighting is just terrible. Then there are the "fog lights"... they're so incredibly dim I can't even tell if they're on or not, they're completely useless. Hella really did a **** poor job on the S-Type.

 

The link on the refinishing the headlamps with UV protection sounds great.

I used the 3M kit on my 99 Surban and trhat made a huge difference but it could probably benefit from a refresh and some of the UV treatment mentioned.

The ones on the Jag have some nicks which is unfortunate since I had both replaced under warranty for droopy tit syndrome shortly after I purchased the car and I always meant to try some protection shields but I just never got around to it. In preparing the car this month for a concours appearance I decided to pick those up and I do need to refinish the lenses before I apply them but adding that extra layer might not be a bad idea as well.

But first the bulb replacement!
That is IF I can ever get off the again ...

My back is killing me now after those 5 hours of torture/frustration.

Actually you might not be all that far away. Wanna do/help with mine?