All,

My car is in the shop for a complete paint job. More about that here: https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...g-snow-178437/

Since the front bumper already has to be removed, and I have a flicker in my passenger side low beam, I figured that it makes sense to change all the bulbs while the work is being done. I spent last night doing some research into what bulbs are needed. Other than the HIDs, I'd like to convert all the other bulbs to LED where possible.

I hoped you guys could review what I'm thinking and chime in with opinions.

My car has HID low beams. These take a D1S bulb (ignitor). This is where I have a bit of a dilemma.

The Osram bulbs are crazy expensive. Amazon has a pair for $152. Here they are:




I kept looking a found these: .





They are only $26 a pair. This has me a little nervous. I'm sure they're not the same quality as the Osrams, but they are also 1/6th the price. There doesnt seem to be any middle of the road bulbs for the D1S. Either really expensive, or really cheap. I'm not sure what to do, but I'm leaning towards the cheaper ones. If I dont like them, or if they're junk, at least I wont be much out of pocket. Seems like a reasonable gamble.


For high beams, my car has H7 bulbs. I'd like to replace these with H7 LED conversions. I've done this on my other car, and love it. I found these: .





My only concern with theses, is if there will be room behind the headlight enclosure for the extended cooling base to fit.



Fog lamps took a little more research. The bulb type is not listed on the front of the lens. Research tells me that they are H3 bulbs. Again, I'd like to the the LED conversion. I found these: .





Again, not sure how much space is available behind the bulb socket for the cooling base.

The parking lights look like they are T10 bulbs. Not positive here. Some places call them W5W, 194, or T10. They all appear to be the same bulb. I found these: .





They look like good quality and they're cheap.

Last are the turn indicators. I think that the stock ones are PY21W bulbs. I found these on amazon: .





I think these look awesome, but don't know if I would need the load resistors or not. Any experience with this?


Looking at my amazon cart, these five sets of bulbs put me at $163.


All of the lamp housings will have to be removed to paint the car, what other bulbs would you change. Tail lights? Break lights? Rear Indicators? Side Markers? The approach lamp under the side mirrors (what bulbs are these)? The mirrors have to be disassembled to paint them, so it might be worth doing. Rear fog lights?

Anyone have a comprehensive list of bulbs for our cars?

What do you think?

 

I've taken another look at the H3 bulbs for the fog lights. I don't think that the extended base on these LED conversion bulbs are going to fit.

Have any of you changed you fog light bulbs? Can you chime in?

 

I can only comment on the Philips 194 bulbs. I put them in 6 months ago and they are working well. They have a white color that more closely matches the color of the HID's.

Keep us up to date about the other LEDs

 

Well, after removing the headlight assemblies form the car and looking more closely at them, it became readily apparent that the LED conversion bulbs that I listed above are not going to work. There simply isn't enough room behind the bulb for the heat sinks that are used by the LED bulbs.

For high beams I ordered these:





For the Fog lights, I ordered these:






For the HID low beams, I ordered these:






For the side marker lights, and a few other places that take the same bulb, I ordered these:






For the running lamps in the headlights, I ordered these:




And lastly, for the front turn indicators, I ordered these:






Gotta love Amazon!


Since the body shop is removing and then re-installing all of the lamp assemblies as part of the paint job, they kindly agreed to swap out the bulbs at the time it all goes back together. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all looks when I get it back.

 

Yes, please keep us posted on the light progress, and include lots of pics! I change the interior lights on my cars to LED's also. Some now are even dimmable so they will fade out like the factory bulbs. I'm sure the car will look great.

 

You probably know this, but some LEDs are polarity sensitive. If a bulb won't work installed one way, pull it flip it 180* and plug it in the other way.

 

I once read that because the X350 is sensitive to voltages and expects a certain amount of wattage/amps to be 'flowing' it can cause issues errors when using LED (being lower amp/watts typically/presumably) - is that not the case? Great news if not, but would be intrigued...

 

Yes, you are right jimbob23, many cars look for a certain load on the bulb circuit, if it's not there it will trip the bulb out indicator. That's why he asked if anyone had experience with load resistors, they are either tied into the circuit to imitate the load of a regular bulb or now many LED bulbs now are self contained and need no load resistors.

 

Is front bumper removal required for all these bulb changes?

 

I'm not sure that the bumper removal is required. I think that Jaguar calls for bumper removal when changing the headlights, but many members here have said that they were able to accomplish the change without removing the bumper.

However, since my car was disassembled for a paint job, it made sense to change all the bulbs while everything was taken apart.

 

How did you end up with your LED bulb exchange?

 

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So a little update:

The LED bulbs that I installed for the front indicators were a bust. They work, but set off the CANBUS error in the car's computer. You get a message on the dash that the bulb is burnt out. LED's draw much less amperage than regular incandescent bulbs and the car monitors the amperage draw to determine when the bulb is burnt out. You can cut the wires and add a load resister to correct this, but I didn't want to go that route.

I looked on amazon and found these bulbs that were listed as being error free: I hoped they would fix the CANBUS error. I installed them, but still had the exact same problem as the first set. I sent them back and installed a new set of amber incandescent light bulbs. This of course fixed the error message.

For the running lamps (small orange and red lights in the four corners of the bumpers), the LED wedge bulbs listed above worked great. However, the side indicator repeater lamps (orange lights behind the front wheels) are also monitored by the car's computer for amperage draw. I got error messages on the dash that read "Side repeater failure". I changed these two bulbs back to regular incandescent wedge bulbs and these error messages also went away.

All in all, LEDs will work in some places, but will cause problems in others.

 

Thanks for the update, I'm in the same process myself now. Did you do anything with your fogs? I'm considering a cheap HID conversion setup since I use them infrequently.

 

Just completed: low beam EVO Alfas. They come with a jumper attached, use 85w, yield 120w output. Have not road tested, but in garage they are noticeably whiter and brighter and lens gets quite warm. Around $13/pr. Walmart. Package states 800 hrs. Life, 30 day guarantee. A bit tricky to thread that jumper through bulb hasp (?) Not ready to rate them, but filament is from Finland, so it must be made of cheese. Simply delicious!