No I never heard that something like that happened. But the article makes sense, and I believe that its in issue. Sure its not gonna be like your harness burns up in two month, but the possiblity it will fail eventually is given.
ML Offroad,
In the "Show off your truck" Thread you posted some pictures of your ML. How big were the rims, 16"? I am thinking about getting the same setup, lift and tires. How much did you pay for the lift and what parts came with it?
The only thing I am concerned about using the retrofit HID kit from Xtec and other brands is that it could burn up my harness sooner or later.
As I said earlier, I found this website h*t*t*p://faqlight.carpassion.info/headlamp-harness.h*t*m*l
and they explain why it's better to use relay harnesses, that suck the power directly from the battery, rather than from the stock harness.
HID's need much more power in the first couple of seconds after they been turned on, and thats wht eventually kill your stock harness.
Daniel
Like I said.... 8 months running with utleast 2 hours daily of driving with them on and not a single hitch what-so-ever. In case you are wondeirng why I just didnt go with the "real" OEM headlights to begin with, it was due to the fact I wanted 6000K and not the stock 4300K therefore I figured it would be a waist to get the OEM's then replace the bulbs with 600ks anyway.
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No I never heard that something like that happened. But the article makes sense, and I believe that its in issue. Sure its not gonna be like your harness burns up in two month, but the possiblity it will fail eventually is given.
ML Offroad,
In the "Show off your truck" Thread you posted some pictures of your ML. How big were the rims, 16"? I am thinking about getting the same setup, lift and tires. How much did you pay for the lift and what parts came with it?
Tires are 285-75-16 Good Year MTR's in that thread. With the 16" OEM 5 star wheels. I have the ORC lift with the front torsion bars adjusted to match rear ride height. The lift cost about $350ish and the install is pretty straight forward. After that you must get an alignment which ran me about $130 at a mercedes stealership.
P.S- I could see the ricers (i.e- civics etc.) having problems with their wiring harnesses, but the mercedes harnesses are much beffier to begin with.
Joe Talerico emailed me about maybe doing a group buy for H7 HID conversion kits which are 6000K, I originally wanted 8000K but after reading around i've been hearing they look identical, he says he can get them for $200 which is a very good deal, I need to check him out first to make sure im not throwing my money into a scam
MLOffRoad - 8/17/2005 4:08 AM
I've compared my beam pattern in my retro-fit to the "real" factory HID's on a another ML and the beam pattern was identical. I hear many people saying the beam pattern is not the same and that there would be glare etc.. this is absolutely not true in my case. If you get the D2S bulbs and put them in the projectors that the halogens come in you wont have a problem with beam patterns period! Getting D2R bulbs though is another story...
I've actually done some side-by-side pictures with my ML with the factory Bi-Xenons vs an ML with Xenon retrofits in the projector housing. The beam pattern is not the same as you can see in the picture below. While the cutoff pattern may seem similar, the spread of light as far as foreground lighting, and off to the sides, is markedly different. The factory xenons are much more evenly spread whereas the halogens are more spotty.
The ML's halogen projectors are certainly better for retrofitting than other manufacturers out there, but the beam pattern is quite certainly not 100% identical. Makes sense given the total different geometry of a halogen bulb vs a Xenon HID bulb. [:)]
Retrofits on the left:
OEM Bi-Xenons:
Retrofitted '02+ halogen projectors:
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Joe Talerico emailed me about maybe doing a group buy for H7 HID conversion kits which are 6000K, I originally wanted 8000K but after reading around i've been hearing they look identical, he says he can get them for $200 which is a very good deal, I need to check him out first to make sure im not throwing my money into a scam
I would strongly recommend against 8000K as they are simply far too blue; the beam pattern will scatter far too easily in poor weather conditions (e.g. rain) defeating the point of Xenons. Even 6000K bulbs produce something like 20% less luminal output than the regular 4300K bulbs.
It sounds like a "looks" versus functionality issue
Quote:
Drew - 8/17/2005 4:01 PM
Quote:
BlackHawk - 8/17/2005 1:28 PM
Joe Talerico emailed me about maybe doing a group buy for H7 HID conversion kits which are 6000K, I originally wanted 8000K but after reading around i've been hearing they look identical, he says he can get them for $200 which is a very good deal, I need to check him out first to make sure im not throwing my money into a scam
I would strongly recommend against 8000K as they are simply far too blue; the beam pattern will scatter far too easily in poor weather conditions (e.g. rain) defeating the point of Xenons. Even 6000K bulbs produce something like 20% less luminal output than the regular 4300K bulbs.
I find my oem bi-xenons to be perfectly adequate in all conditions. But I met a guy with 8000K's in his ML and I'll tell you what they did look pretty cool with the purple/blue coloring [attracted a LOT of attention also. bling!] but the light scattered everywhere within the housing(projector lenses were basically useless and looked overcome by the intensity) and they were WAY too bright when he was behind me. Looked very rice on an ML to me. With the great price of the PP bi-xenons I would go with the oem set up. But, You can always try the halogens first and see if you like them!
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I've actually done some side-by-side pictures with my ML with the factory Bi-Xenons vs an ML with Xenon retrofits in the projector housing. The beam pattern is not the same as you can see in the picture below. While the cutoff pattern may seem similar, the spread of light as far as foreground lighting, and off to the sides, is markedly different. The factory xenons are much more evenly spread whereas the halogens are more spotty.
The ML's halogen projectors are certainly better for retrofitting than other manufacturers out there, but the beam pattern is quite certainly not 100% identical. Makes sense given the total different geometry of a halogen bulb vs a Xenon HID bulb. [:)]
Drew, maybe you would know this. What is the difference between the DOT and E-Code spec HID projectors (say, as fitted to the ML)? Apart from the city light, clear reflector and high-beam behaviour of course. I personally cannot see a difference in low-beam cutoff pattern or spread of light to the sides, although there apparently is a difference in the DOT and E-Code patterns.
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