new headlights

Mileage: 91xxx

(should've posted this a while back, I'm a slacker)

The stock headlights on the US M3's suck. They're cheap plastic junk that leaves you unaware of what's out there. Seriously, they're a hazard. Okay, maybe I complain more because I know better. My wife's car, an e46 328i, has xenon headlights and they're awesome.

Enough whining. I ended up with some Depo elipsoid headlights from Umnitza. They're cheap chinese upgrades, but compared to the stock headlights they kick ass.

The lights take halogen bulbs (H1). I read up on the subject and you can pay more for higher quality european bulbs. I decided it'd be worth it, so I sprung for Narva Rangepower+50's from Daniel Stern Lighting. Daniel Stern runs a small business, so placing an order involved emailing him for pricing and availability, then calling him and leaving voicemail with my ccard info. Two weeks after I ordered, I still hadn't recieved the bulbs, so I emailed him. He replied and said he had been sick, and he'd ship them out right away. About a week later I got the bulbs.

So with the kit complete, I set out to do the install. I was at the "boy, this was easier than I thought" part. Then, of course, the high beams didn't work. I messed with it, and they still didn't work. I took it apart, put it back together, they didn't work. I took em apart again, busted out the multimeter, debugged where every wire went, rewired things differently than the first 2 attempts, and they worked. Awesome.

Since there's nothing worse than some jackass blinding you with their ill adjusted headlights, I headed to the parking garage at work with a tape measure and some painters tape to aim them. I followed the instructions on Daniel Stern's site to align them with a wall. It took a little while to get used to as the aiming seemed low at first, but I adjusted.

Obligatory lame camera phone pic to the right.
The lights are excellent. They're not as nice as my wife's car's xenons, but they're a huge step up
from the stock lights.