H7 Bulbs HID replacements

[OilBurna]

Are these legal, suspect not, guys in the US seem to like them. Want to upgrade headlights after driving wife's V40 with xenons, have recently replaced both H7 bulbs but still not impressed.

These ones are designed for reflector housings

VWVortex.com - H7RC DeAutoKey install and review

[team_v]

So it's a xenon bulb in a reflector housing?

Better of just getting some Osram Rally's.

[Hillbilly]

No they wont be legal as no self levelling and no washers About $4000 to do full legal retrofit according to another thread.

[Unkonwn_User]

Since everyone jumps on the legality band wagon I'll actually attempt to offer some valuable input.

I did quite a bit of research and decided that xenon bulbs in a H7 housing are not worth it.

1) the beam pattern will never be right. Halogen designed housings send more light upwards and it will never look right.

2) aftermarket ballasts can burn other components due to spikes in power usage. This is reported on Audi's and VW's with and without 'canbus safe' ballasts. This is a headache I did not want... Most common is a blown wiper motor.

On a side note Auto levelling is bull ****. I get blinded by many many many factory xenon cars that go over small bumps on the road. No auto levelling can adapt that fast. I.e unless you go from 0-100 at full throttle and the front of your car is slightly raised they offer little assistance.

All in all doing a quick and cheap attempt was not satisfactory for me. I would recommend buying some good quality Osram or Phillips units for optimal performance (some are very white)

[nat225]

Auto levelling is not designed to work on road bumps. It is designed to correct beam height when the rear of the car is loaded with stuffs or 3 sumo wrestlers.