HID HALO: Finally!!

[eschapiro]

First of all, sorry for my English. I'm not a native English speaker (or writer), so sometimes I use any word that I think fit, but not necessarily the best one there.

Having said that, I was looking for a long time for a tutorial where someone transformed the yellowish OEM Halo (angel eyes) into the ultra bright white ones, like the new 2015+ models. I'm not talking about the easy halogen to LED replacement, which look nice at night, but as outdoor light shines, they look dim until they almost seem not to be lit at all (I went through that way in my former e90).

I started looking for a high quality HID conversion kit. I wanted to be as close as possible to BMW reliability (one never could get there, but the closer the better). I finally stood with a Philips Xendrive XLD CK G4 Canbus, H8 type.

My first attempt failed, because is was nothing but flickering. I guessed that an anti flicker module (H8) before the ballast should solve this. Right? WRONG!. Still flickering. Every step for me is 2-3 month; I do live in Chile, so Sh&H to here, customs, Etc. takes about 2 months, and having FOUR (yes, 4) children also takes away a lot of free time.

I studied about power consumption, Etc., and supposed that the current drain from the ballast is more than the current the lighting module of the car can provide (although HID's are supposed to draw less than the halogen bulbs they replace...).
This way, 2-3 months later, I received my H8 Relay kit.

Last Saturday I received it, and after some 4-5 hours wrestling with the wires and harnesses, I achieved to put all of it in place and connected. The hardest part is to put the seal rubber that comes with the HID bulb into the hole I had to drill in the headlight rear cap; the plastic ones that you remove to replace a bulb. That is a little nightmare, because of the short cables and the little room left (big hands, in my case, means plenty small scares in my hands for a few days).
Finally, I got everything working.

The results are nothing but amazing!

The rings are so bright, that they compete or surpass the ones in the newest 2016 bimmers, it is really incredible how the car looks now, achieving a 3-year revamp just as you look at it.

X6 (e71) owners must know that due to a headlight design constrain, the outer ring lits much dimmer than the inner one.
I am attaching some pictures I took, so as to show you:
1) How looks the car with just one of the lights changed, so as to compare the new ones with the old ones.
2) Same picture, a few hours later, at DIRECT SUNLIGHT, where you can see the rings lit very strong.
3) My new setting on my X6, compared to my wife's X3, with OEM white halos, and guess what.... Mines are much brighter.

Final thoughts:
Although it's a half day work, where you will work very hard (or you can take the car to an electrician if you prefer; I am just the kind of schmock that likes to do himself the projects), when finished, it is nothing but an outstanding upgrade. The car looks much younger, and now you can use with pride your DRLs, which distinguish clearly at direct sunlight.
GOOD LUCK!!!

Dave, from Chile!