Still saving up for my own XF, but in researching what I could about modifying the pre-2012 headlights, I came across this:

Has anyone here succeeded in opening up the stock headlights without resorting to cutting?

 

This is a very nice mod. I love the red "eye's" on the black. Makes the car look nice and mean. I would be interesting in finding out how to get this mod. Not necessarily the red HID's but the LED's with turn signals would be a very nice addition...any idea on retail or if it's a possibility? The company is Russian so I will assume not but let me know if you find anything out.

Thanks for the post.

Aaron

 

I know you can bake most head lights in the oven and they should pry apart. No experiance with the XF though.

 

I would love to mod everyones XF head lights if they wanted. I know all about what is needed and how to do it. I still cant beleive that the 2011 and older XF's did not all come with LED blinkers in mirrors, turn signals, parking lights, entry lights,reverse lights. The whole rear of the xf is led but the turns and rev lights. Maybe I will do a minor mod to my own and see what you guys think?
I was going to do switchback front parking/turn signals, marker light, and mod the high/low beams with LED dusk lighting. Nothing crazy at all and will appear stock looking.

 

have to say I don't normally like lighting mods but that red just looks plain mean! Totally impractical but very cool on a Jag.

 

BigCat I'm in!!!

 

All I know is when I see late model European cars and 2012 XFs with LED running lights I get insanely jealous... if someone could come up with a good looking mod for '09-'11 XFs I would be in...

Cheers,

- Will

 

Yep.. what he said!

A nice, clean, OEM solution for LED DRL's would be awesome. Normally I have no issues cutting into my cars, but this car was brand new with factory warranty for the next 5 yrs.

I tried these and they worked great for a bit, but the LEDs just wouldn't hold up and I ended up pulling them out. Thank goodness for two sided tape and not bolts and holes!

 

Hi guys - just trying resurrect this discussion... Has anyone been able to mod their headlights to have the professional LED strip look?

I reached out to the Russian guys at LEDTECH (from youtube vid) and they said they would still do the upgrades but it would cost $2000 and you would have to ship them your headlights.

So for me that means I would need to buy another set of headlights ($600 on ebay if im lucky) + shipping + $2000 for the upgrade.

So all in we are looking at close to $3000.

I know the ones they produced in that video are great looking, but I'm not sure if its worth $3000.

I have been calling around locally but all the shops I have talked to are not interested in the project... I don't need all the fancy sh*t that the guys from LEDTECH installed, really just looking for a professional looking LED strip.

 

You may want to reach out to The Retrofit Source (The Retrofit Source Inc)

I have ordered ZKW-R lenses from them in the past for another vehicle and they were great to work with. They do a lot of headlight customization for many different cars. IIRC they have an exchange program in many cases where they can send you a set of "loaner" headlights while the work is being done. I doubt they get a lot of XF requests so they probably don't have any for us but it's worth a shot.

I have seen them do carbon fiber inserts in headlights, angel eyes, LED strips, etc. Check out their Inspirations page

 

I think I have talked myself into modifying my headlights when the weather cools off a little bit. I love blacked out housings (which most of the new Jags now have instead of chrome) and the orange bits have always bothered me in any headlight. I have a set of ZKW-R lenses sitting around that I debated on swapping into the XFR however after watching a video on it I don't think I want to try this for the first time on my car. I have baked / blacked out several sets of headlights in the past so I feel pretty confident in that portion of the project.

If / when I get this going I will post up a project "how to" thread with pictures, along with materials needed and before and afters.

 

WRXtranceformed, if you can share any pictures when you get it apart please do. I am playing with different lighting right now with the hopes to do the headlight or perhaps the lower intake on the XFR. I am trying to find a broken headlight cheap to take apart to see how I can actually get the internals to work (If anyone has one let me know). I especially want to see how the turn signal comes apart. Circled part below.

 

I happen to have a broken right hand 2009 XF SC headlamp... I was keeping it for spare parts. The front lens was cracked and has a small hole in it. It's mostly intact and still worked fine. PM me. I'll probably pull the lighting electronic components off and keep the bulbs but the rest I'd be willing to sell fairly cheap.

 

Will do, that is actually one of the exact parts that I will be focusing on. Generally I have to either break that orange piece out or pop its tabs out and replace the turn signal with an amber bulb.

Here is an "after" I did on my old TL Type-S:

What the orange turn signal lenses looked like before I removed them:

Amber bulbs in:

 

I have also been considering baking my headlights and pulling them apart to paint the housing. I really hate silver headlight housings. I've done it on my past two cars. However, on my XFR, my main concern is with the HIDs. On my previous car, a Mazdaspeed3, there were two headlight options; regular and HIDs. The regular headlights could be baked and opened. The HIDs could not. Now I'm not sure if that's a function of the HIDs or a function of the fact that the headlights turned where you pointed the wheels. I do know that HIDs produce a lot more heat and thusly they may have to use a stronger adhesive on the lens to keep it from melting itself off. Let me know how they turn out. Because if it's doable, that'll probably be my next mod.

 

Here is a thread from another Jag forum were a guy did this, has before and after shots, looks great!! I hope the link works. http://www.jaginfo.org/showthread.ph...the-Headlights

 

Nice find! That's the exact look I'm after, although I probably won't go through the trouble of tinting the orange components unless I have to...probably just pop them out. Also, I will likely leave the chrome square on the outside bottom of the headlight chrome instead of blacking it out like he did. Thanks for posting!

 

That's fantastic. I'm totally going to do this next weekend.

 

In my previous cars I just painted the orange lens. I found it looked stupid with it removed entirely because there was some weird support tabs for it. I presume the Jag will have the same, so I will probably do the same here. I'm definitely going to Dip the headlight washer door as well as the chrome surrounds for the grilles. My plan is for black aftermarket wheels so I might leave the chrome window surrounds. I don't want to completely murder out the car.

 

Nice sounds like a good plan! When you painted the orange lens did the turn signal light still make it through well enough? I guess if you hit it with a thin enough coat it would still let enough light through