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BMW Lights - The best upgrade for your Bimme
One of the modifications that you can make to your BMW that
will provide you with an almost immediate and noticeable effect is to
improve or upgrade your car or SUV’s lighting system. There are a
number of different ways that you can improve the safety of your vehicle
by adding a much brighter and clearer lighting system. Better still,
many of these options also convey a unique and attractive look to your
vehicle that sets it apart from other stock rides. Lighting upgrades
truly offer the best of both worlds when it comes to stretching your
modification buck as far as possible.
Let’s take a look at some of the most popular and most effective lighting upgrades available on the market.
Corner Lenses and Turn Signals
Your BMW was designed in Europe by German engineers. This
means that the European influence is easy to see in almost every area of
its look – including the lights. Unlike North America, most countries
in the E.U. have never required amber-colored turn signal lenses, either
on the front or the rear of the car. These were added on to all BMW’s
destined to be shipped across the Atlantic to the United States, in
order to meet the regulations imposed by the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration.
If you own a BMW hailing from the 1990’s – specifically, a E30,
E34, E36, E39 or even an E46 – you might have seen a car just like
yours in a tuner magazine that swapped out the clunky orange turn
signals and installed Euro clear lenses. You may also have seen some
cars with darker paint schemes that make use of smoked or almost
completely blacked-out taillights and turn signals.
There is no doubt that this retrofitted Euro look adds a
serious dose of style to a BMW, one that is far more true to the
original design of the vehicle. You may have been tempted to have this
particular modification done to your own vehicle, but have held back
because you weren’t sure how expensive or difficult it was to perform.
If you fall into the category of drivers who secretly crave
Euro corner lenses on their car, you are in luck – this modification is
one of the least expensive and easiest to perform out of all lighting
upgrades. In the vast majority of cases, it’s as simple as undoing a
few screws holding in each light and then pulling it off the side of
your car and replacing it with the clear or smoked version. That’s it.
For BMW’s, the modification is almost completely plug and play.
There are a couple of things to watch out for when performing
this type of installation. The first is to be aware of your local laws
regarding turn signals – most states have no issue with a clear corner
lens as long as the bulb inside is amber when it illuminates. You also
want to make sure that you don’t go for the lowest of the low priced
lenses. Some of the cheaper models won’t fit properly due to poor
quality control. No one wants an ugly, ill-fitting light hanging off
the front or back of their car.
Stealth Bulbs
Now that you’ve got clear or smoked corner lenses on your car,
let’s talk about a certain styling issue that is commonly associated
with this lighting modification: the egg yolk look. There’s no denying
that clear lenses look great, but if the bulb hiding behind that lens is
bright orange, it definitely dilutes some of the cool factor.
Since amber turn signals are the law in almost all parts of the
country, how can you get around this particular fashion faux pas? The
answer is surprisingly simple: Stealth Bulbs. Manufactured by Stealth
Auto, these legendary turn signal bulbs are a perfect match for any
clear or smoked corner lens thanks to an ingenious design that renders
them almost completely invisible when not lit.
That’s right – “Stealth” isn’t just a brand name in this case,
it’s an accurate description of exactly how the product works. Stealth
Bulbs use a silver coating that helps to hide the bulb in the fixture
when it isn’t in use. When it’s time to flick on your turn signals, the
bulb glows bright amber, meeting all applicable laws. How does it
work? A special metallic coating is applied to the bulb itself that
hides the amber color from the outside, but lets light shine through
when the filament is activated. This bulb is so advanced that it takes a
specially hired NASA contractor to correctly apply the coating.
Stealth Bulbs are a great and inexpensive way to dress up your BMW and take full advantage of your Euro styling.
Angel Eyes / Halo’s
One of BMW’s primary styling tools for years was the use of
four round headlights on almost every one of their vehicles. In the
1990’s, the company switched to round lamps enclosed behind rectangular
housings, and then after the dawn of the new millennium more sculpted,
body-integrated headlight housings came into favor.
Despite this design evolution, the company decided to pay
tribute to its heritage by installing glowing round rings – two to a
side – around each of the headlights on select editions of its cars.
Called Angel Eyes or Halo’s by the aftermarket community, the effect was
stunning especially at twilight: a gentle illumination that accented
the natural beauty of BMW lights design.
It wasn’t long before owners of new BMW’s that didn’t offer
this feature, as well as those who owned older models that predated
Angel Eyes began to clamor for the ability to install a similar set of
lights in their cars. In short order, an entire range of replacement
Halo lights became available for almost every model built by BMW in the
past 25 years.
Installing Angel Eyes is a bit more involved than the other
modifications mentioned in this chapter. You will have to remove your
current set of headlights and replace them entirely with new ones that
feature the Halo look. Depending upon which BMW you own, this can be a
fairly complicated procedure that might entail disassembling some of the
front body trim and removing the grille. If you are uncomfortable with
the idea of removing that many parts from your car, you can usually
have these lights installed by a local mechanic or independent BMW shop
for a very reasonable price. After all, there’s no reason why you
shouldn’t enjoy the same hot looking BMW lights enjoyed by newer BMW’s at a fraction
of the cost.
HID’s – High Intensity Discharge Lights
The ultimate lighting modification that you can make to your
ultimate driving machine is to replace your standard headlights with an
HID system. High Intensity Discharge lights differ from standard
headlights in that they use an arc of electricity sealed in an ionized
gas – usually xenon – instead of a filament to produce a very bright and
natural looking light. If that sounds a bit complicated, don’t worry –
you are already familiar with HID lights. They are the bright,
white-looking headlights you come across in the other lane when driving
at night, the ones that outperform the standard bulbs in your car by a
fair margin.
Installing HID lights makes sense both aesthetically and from a
safety point of view – not only do they look great, but they provide a
much greater cone of visibility in the darkness, which lets you drive
with increased peace of mind. Many BMW’s came with HID’s right from the
factory, but for those that didn’t there are a number of kits available
to retrofit them into almost any model.
Installing an HID kit is not an easy task. If you are
comfortable with removing and installing the headlight assembly in your
car, and you are comfortable adding in some extra wiring to your
headlight harness, then you will probably be ok to tackle this type of
job. If not, then it’s always a better idea to let a professional
handle the installation and keep your headaches to a minimum.
Don’t be fooled by some of the “discount” packages out there -
true HID lights are more than just a bulb. Many BMW’s already have
stock projector lights, which means that they can accept HID kits that
include bulbs, relays, a wiring harness and ballasts. Each BMW’s
headlight wiring is a bit different, so you will need to make sure that
you have the correct instructions for installing the kit you purchase in
your specific car.
Keep in mind that you will need to find a safe place to mount
both the relays and the ballasts. The ballasts, which are used to
ignite and power xenon HID’s must be installed somewhere near your
headlights in your engine bay. Another important consideration when
installing HID’s in a BMW is that it might cause an error with your LKM
module – the computer that controls and checks the status of your
lighting system. Since HID bulbs don’t have a filament, they can often
confuse the LKM into thinking that your headlights are actually burnt
out, which leads to an error message being displayed on your car’s check
control screen. Depending upon which BMW you install your BMW lights in,
there are a number of different wiring workarounds that can fool the LKM
into thinking everything is working properly, such as installing
special anti-flicker capacitors which are designed to help even out the
current being provided by your stock headlight electrical system. You
may also have to install larger light fuses to handle the extra draw of
the HID ballasts.
After performing any headlight work – be it Angel Eyes
installation or HID upgrade – make sure to double-check the aim of your
lights so that they strike a nice balance between providing excellent,
far-reaching illumination of great BMW Lights.