Why did it take me so long to upgrade my headlamps? The short answer is, because I frightened the excrement out of myself in a VERY near miss with a sizable buck on an unlit Bexar County back road one night last month. It was so close I later saw the smear from his coat in the grime on the passenger fender where we skimmed past each other! Fortunately, because I've adapted to the XK's wimpy lights and generally keep the speed down on unlit roads, the fear and the smear was the only damage done, but the experience spurred me to action.

When I first bought the car I tried several different brands of halogen bulb, each promising superior results, to try and boost the low beam projector set up, but without significant improvement and, eventually, I just gave up and accepted that mediocre lights were part of the price you pay to own an early XK! So, having now renewed my resolve to improve things, I started researching posts on LED options here on the Forum at and learned a lot from the 'Headlight Revolution' You Tube channel. That helped clarify a lot of the contradictory and confusing sales and marketing claims for the hundreds of LED bulb offerings that fill the market place. Once I knew what features I needed, and why, I started browsing Amazon. There were still an awful lot of choices but I zeroed in on a couple and finally went with the 'Aukee' brand. Their bulb seemed to have good power and colour, an active (fan) cooling design and a driver that wasn't too big....it has to fit inside the headlamp housing. I had seen them mentioned in past JF posts, they have a nice, sharp beam cut-off with good colour and are generally a huge improvement over the halogen bulbs. How long will they last? Only time will tell, and I've still got the original, marginal high beams, but they are rarely used in normal everyday driving and, overall, this was a very worthwhile upgrade.


The bulbs finally chosen.

Active cooling (fan) and fairly compact driver make these a good fit for the XK lamp unit.

Access is quite tight to get to the projector cover even with steering on full lock. In the end I jacked up the car and pulled the wheels....much easier.

These halogens are less than a year old and have evidence of significant heat damage.

Even with the wheels off it was fiddly trying to get the driver and wiring tidily stowed in a small space.

Wow.....can we say night and day...pun intended.

Had to fuss with the alignment but was able to get a nice clean, sharp pattern.
.

 

I have the same bulbs. If you got them in with the inner fender shroud in place, especially on the driver's side, my hat is off to you! Nice job.

Hey, did you get the impression that orientation of the bulb is supposed to make a difference in its effectiveness? Ttytt mine worked fine so I didn't dive into that but I think I recall it being mentioned. Yes I admit I'm stereotypical man, what me need instructions? Nah I've done this before. :-)

John

 

I'm a man....I don't do maps or instructions....LOL. In this case I did skim through the specs and FAQ's, which were minimally useful, but I found the 'installation instruction pics' confusing and contradictory. Regarding bulb orientation, from the pic below you can see that #4 shows a twisting action of the bulb to 'adjust the beam pattern' while #5 shows the LED chips should be facing 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock? In reality, I found the final bulb positions were somewhat influenced by the positioning of their driver and the wiring harness, which was a bit of a tight fit. Both bulbs ended up close to, but not exactly, 3 and 9 but the final beam pattern was fine. In a projector mount I don't think bulb position is a critical as it might be in a fixed reflector.

 

My vehicle came with the headlamp covers in the trunk....the led bulb fans were too big to get them on.
I had to bore out the centre on the lathe and glue a tube on to make them fit . I did note the owner had turned down the kerbside light to point more to the kerb so perhaps they were still not so good . HID would be the answer but you have to take them out every 12 months for a British MOT test ...ahghhh

 

Thanks for this, Old Matelots! Would you mind posting the Amazon link and/or the specific model number you bought? There are a lot of different Aukee bulbs, and the Amazon “this fits your vehicle” filter seems pretty unreliable :-)

 

 

Ive had HID’s on my MGTF and it’s passed mot’s with no problems for the past 4 years

 

For what it’s worth, the Hakari LED bulbs will fit nicely without having to fabricate a new cap arrangement. Amazon has them in 3 or 4 different light intensities and price points, all with the built in cooling fan, etc.


Z

 

Thank you for posting the link. I just ordered a pair of these for the Low beams (1998 XK8).
Any suggestions for a LED replacement for the high Beams? Thought I'd get them both done at once.

Thanks

 

Sorry, but I haven't bothered changing the high beams as they get used so infrequently. Maybe another forum member can offer some ideas?

 

these are the ones I’m using in my ‘02 XKR, also available from Amazon:

HIKARI Ultra 9005 LED Bulbs, Prime ZES LED, 12000lm, High Lumens LED Conversion Kit, HB3 Halogen bulbs Replacement, Canbus Ready, 6000K Cool White, 9145 9045 Foglight
The Hakari line has several price points for both the high beam (HB3 / 9005) and the low beams (H1). If I recall correctly the high beam bulbs were about $89. They start at much lower though, around $30. But more light is generally better., I think the $89 set are well worth the $$$.

The Hakari low beams are excellent as well.

Z

 

Another data point for you: I was impressed with the Aukee low beams recommended by Old Matelots, so I got Aukee’s high beams too:

(Amazon) au-kee 9005 LED Headlight Bulbs Fanless HB3 10000LM 6000K White CSP Chips Conversion Kit

They are fanless and just under $30. A bit of a fiddle to install, but not too bad. Looks like the Hikaris mentioned by Zray are brighter though (12000 lumen vs. 10000).

 

Good morning,

I don't do much night driving either but thought it be nice to get both beams done.

Thanks!

 

Good morning,

Thank you! I'll buy a set.

 

Is there an advantage to the “fan-less” bulbs ?

I’m far from knowledgeable when it comes to the LED technology, but was thinking that keeping the business end of the bulb cooler with a fan would be a good thing. I did notice that the higher the lumen output the more likely it was that a bulb came with a built in fan.

If there are pros and cons to the fan feature please advise.


10,000 vs 12,000 lumens :

when I first surrendered to the need of LED bulbs I bought the $39 version of the Hakari H1 low beam bulb. While it was a substantial improvement over the best halogen type I could find, I was overly curious on what improvement I could expect by upgrading to the $89 Hakari H1. When Amazon had a Black Friday sale last year the 12,000 lumen H1’s were about 30% off so I sprung for a pair of them.

A 17% increase in lumens may not sound like much on paper, but the difference was quite striking, and worth the extra $$$ to me.

Considering how dangerous night driving can be when deer and other animals are involved, having just a little more illumination can be a life saver (for the driver, as well as the deer).


Z

PS both the low and high beam Hakari bulbs fit without requiring any modifications to the wiring or headlight bulb covers. Getting the stock low beam bale wire to snap back in its groove to secure the bulb was a bit challenging with the LED bulb, as it’s adaptor must be a bit thicker than the base of a stock halogen H1 bulb. That’s my only complaint.

 

Well, everything in life is a trade-off :-) The laws of Physics say ”no such thing as a free lunch”, so only the lower-lumen lights can be fanless, because “more lumens” means “more heat” means “more cooling needed”.

The downside is that fans are mechanical and will eventually fail (or may soon fail, depending on the manufacturer). I’ve read online of people having fan failure problems (although don’t recall the manufacturers), and I don’t rely much on my high beams at night, so I decided my trade-off is to prefer longevity over lumens (since the LEDs are such a huge improvement anyway).

Of course, the fanless ones might fail earlier because they get hotter, but at least they were cheap

Everybody’s trade-off decision will be different, based on their own situation - I’m not dissing fans at all.

(For what it’s worth, the Aukees also went in without any modifications to housings or wiring.)

 

I’ll report back (in a new thread) if and when I have a bulb failure. So far I’m averaging 3 cross country trips yearly. I do enjoy night driving so the LED lights and their fans should be put to the test. Since the car is my daily driver there’s a fair amount of local night driving as well.

I did a moderate amount of online research before settling on the Haraki brand. They got high marks for both lumen output and longevity. Time will tell.


Z