XSeries-forum

I had a stock bulb fail and discovered the replacement price was about the same as LEDs. I poked around a bit on Amazon.de and read the German guys' reviews. Germans are quite brutal and frank if they don't like a product. I settled for Seitronic brand (see pic) which had the best rank and comments in its price range (£40).

So far, excellent!  (see pic)  For the price of stock replacements, it's a no brainer as we say in California. Here's the link to Amazon.de. http://goo.gl/5a6486

They are not as bright as the DRLs on my E70 when it's on daylight setting. But my E53 has no day setting, and the night setting is about the same brightness as my E70. I realise that my E53 only has two wires to the bulbs, so unless BMW varies the voltage to the bulbs on that pair of wires, only one brightness is possible. Perhaps someone here has crossed that bridge?

Not sure where that weird reflection came from in the middle between the two X5s...

WOW, looks excellent -
I have 15Watt LED angel eye bulbs fitted in mine, but they don't look anything like as bright as yours ! ! ! !

What wattage output are your LED units ?

I took that photo in the dark, so they look brighter. 

These are rated at 5w, but by reading the comments on Amazon.de I realized that the claimed watts don't seem to always translate to customer satisfaction.

Have you had any problems with these LEDs? For example, do they flicker when you first turn the ignition on? After a few weeks of ownership, are you happy with the brightness? How much brighter are they than the standard bulbs? Do you get any bulb error messages on your dashboard?

Sorry for all the questions, but I'm thinking of getting some, unless anyone can suggest better, brighter ones, for about £35 (can't see the point in paying £100 for side lights)

So far, no complaints at all, 2 months later, and they are about double the brightness of the stock little halogen bulbs.  I admire them every time I pull into work and see their reflection in the large entry way glass. But on other cars I've had aftermarket LEDs fail after a year,  so time will tell. They do have large aluminium heatsinks on the back, which shows forethought.

There are of course test flickers when you start the car, when it sends several pulses to every monitored bulb. If I'm parked against a wall I do notice those flickers left/right for a couple of seconds. It's only visible with LEDs because incandescent bulbs don't light up as quickly. When I put LEDs into my E38 a few years back, I noticed the same phenomena.

I have no bulb errors on the console. I even put in inexpensive LEDs for the number plate which should normally cause CAN Bus errors, but they generate no error. I wonder if the car monitors the number plate bulbs at all?

HTH,

What was the fit into the bulb holder like ? my replacements are looser than the originals bulbs.

Cheers!

They fit tight like the stock ones. The only difference is an additional pigtail wire for fitting other models.

RenoHuskerDu, do you perhaps have any daylight photos?
I'd like to compare the brightness with the ones I've installed.

Thanks

Replacing original style AEs is expensive. When I had one go, I decided to see how the fitting was assembled. I filed off some of the black plastic, where this is heat welded to retain it in the holder. You can then simply pull the holder and bulb straight out. It will still go back in and stay there, as a toothed retention is used, only visible after the plastic above has been removed.

And the bulb? this is a simple 12v 10w bayonet tungten, not halogen, type, which could so easily have been made replaceable. It should be possible to replace it through the reflector, but the bayonet pins don't fit through - unless you enlarge the hole fractionally.

So the bulb is actually very simple to replace - except that BMW used a hard to find bulb! I tried a halogen as these are easy to find, but oddly the AE was much dimmer.

[quote="TheHerd"]
RenoHuskerDu, do you perhaps have any daylight photos?
I'd like to compare the brightness with the ones I've installed.
[/quote]

That X5 is back at my Indy to renew the various suspension bushes...to prolong tyre life and my smile. I'll take a picture next week.

[quote="TheHerd"]
RenoHuskerDu, do you perhaps have any daylight photos?
[/quote]

Here ya go, with a modest editorial statement, to boot. It's a grey day but the cloud cover isn't very thick. They would look brighter in rainy weather, and less bright if it were sunny. Whenever I see another E53 I check out its AEs and so far mine are brighter. About half of the E53s that I see have been converted. The replacement bulbs at a French dealer cost more than conversion kits on Amazon.


(It's not that I'd take any joy in seeing you escape us, but rather I'd celebrate your gain)

Ha hahaha - very funny! I'd put up an argument for us to stay in Europe, but I don't want to be accused of going off topic. Instead, I'll just say that if we weren't in Europe we might have to pay trading tariffs to Germany and those lovely BMWs would cost even more than they do now

[quote="chubbs"]
Ha hahaha - very funny! I'd put up an argument for us to stay in Europe, but I don't want to be accused of going off topic. Instead, I'll just say that if we weren't in Europe we might have to pay trading tariffs to Germany and those lovely BMWs would cost even more than they do now
[/quote]

X5's are made in South Carolina in the USA.
So we're safe to Brexit.

[quote="Horizon"]
[quote="chubbs"]
Ha hahaha - very funny! I'd put up an argument for us to stay in Europe, but I don't want to be accused of going off topic. Instead, I'll just say that if we weren't in Europe we might have to pay trading tariffs to Germany and those lovely BMWs would cost even more than they do now
[/quote]

X5's are made in South Carolina in the USA.
So we're safe to Brexit.

We're all OT and if we don't watch out, Moderator will whack us!  :'( 
Especially me, as I started it.