Question about Xenon foglight upgrade - The Unofficial BMW M5 Messageboard (m5board.com)

reed · 15th February 2002, 01:21

I'm thinking about upgrading to xenon foglights and recall that several board members have done this conversion. I would appreciate any guidance from those who have completed the conversion. How difficult was the install? Do you get an error message from the computer? Was the upgrade worth the trouble and expense? I know these are not driving lights and am wondering with the dispersion of the stock lenses whether the additional light would just be "lost." I probably wouldn't bother if the only benefit was the xenon color.

Thanks in advance for any help.

atomic80 · 15th February 2002, 02:51

I'm one of the few who converted my foglights to HIDs. You'll get many different answers on whether making this change will cause your dashboard to give you the message "check fog lights" or not. Mine doesn't do it for me. The only thing I can think of would be to make sure that your connections are secure.

It's an easy upgrade. You'd need to get HID D2S 9006 type bulbs along with the ballast/ignitor units (try to get the ones made by either osram or phillips for the bulbs and phillips for the ballast). It's all plug and play. The hardest part is removing the black plastic housing. There are also a number of ways that you could attach the ballast to the car. I used double sided tape to securely attach the ballast to the inside of my bumper. Works great this way. You'll take the stock plug that comes off the halogen bulbs and plug that in the ballast unit and from there you'd plug the connector to the HID bulb before carefully putting it back in the foglight housing. You'd probably want to use a plastic flat screwdriver type on the outer edge to undo the tab that locks the housing in place. Do NOT touch the screw that you see in the little hole on the black foglight housing. That's to adjust the alignment. Also, do NOT touch the glass part of the HID bulbs. The oil on your hand will burn at the high temperatures that the HID bulbs put out and weaken the glass.

To answer your question about light disperal after the upgrade. I will admit that it's not as defined as the lowbeams but it does put out a LOT more light filling in the area immediatley in front of your car as well as the far end just slightly above the lowbeam cutoff line. Really works well! I'd do the upgrade again if given the chance to.

Sorry I don't have pictures handy of the actual parts as they're installed but I'm sure that if you did a search on here you'll find them.

MarkM5Lauderdale · 15th February 2002, 03:08

I'll second Jason's comments. I find having the fogs on at night helps with seeing road signs which are sometimes below the cutoff beam of the low beams. Also good when there is no street lighting the area.

jh_m5 · 15th February 2002, 16:39

I converted the fogs to true HID lights. You definitly lose the sharp cutoff characteristic of the original fogs. The light is more diffuse and seems to bother oncoming drivers. I wind up using mine more as fill in driving lights on dark roads. I do get the error message and have not had a chance to track down the cause. I'm not sure if it was worth it- I originally put in 80 W blue halogen bulbs which did put out more light and retained the sharp cutoff beam pattern.