If you cant afford the Offical Fiat aftermarket upgrade (£1000), and thought the £500 order upgrade were expensive, then try www.autolamps-online.com their H1 (Stilo Headlamps bulb) upgrade is £380 including free delivery (any country) seem to do the job. not bad considering a HID Xenon bulb pair cost about £200. Might even get one myself as me other car has em as standard and I miss em on the stilo.

they are fully reversible (you can take the system out and re-install your old h1 55w bulbs), and fit in any h1 bulb car - apparently you plug the new bulb where the old one was, plug new bulb into a ballast (or driver) box, which inturn plugs into the connector for your old h1 bulb. so if you want you can move em to your new motor

They do do all the other standard bulbs sizes as well.

Kev
1.6 Stilo Dynamic, bright blue, spoiler, CD, Steering wheel u/grade and wait for it - Blue mats and ice scraper!!

I enquired at dealer about the fiat xenons and was told it was impossible to fit afterwards due to "sophisticated electronic circuitry in stilo"???? guess he means about the computer knowing if bulb has gone or not. does anyone know if it possible for factory lights to be done afterwards or does the ones mentioned at autolamps work with car ok
thanks

stilo 2.4 20v arbarth

Hi mate, the dealer is talking a load of rubbish, i've fitted Xenons into my 03 plate stilo with bulb alarm warnings and its been fine. Now the only thing is you must be careful which kits you buy, not all will work like that and some may bring up bulb alarm warnings.

If anyone is after any xenon kits, let me know and I'll point you in the right direction on what kit you need for what car.

icks83 - Look at the date of the first post.... This thread is nearly 4yrs old!

Anyway, you won't get any bulb warning messages after fitting HID's, there is no bulb warning system on the headlights, only on the lights you can't see when driving ie. rear lights.

just upgraded 35 watt HIDs to 50 watt HIDs...

WHAT a difference! If you think 35 is bright, 50 watts is truly EVIL ;-) :slayer: :worship:

Am I right in thinking that after market HID kits are actualy illegal due to the fact the lens cant level out as factory fit units do!? Also every single HID fitted car I have seen has headlamp washers fitted, not sure if this is a requirement to.

I may be wrong about this but I think I've read about it somewhere.

Multiplewagon said:

Am I right in thinking that after market HID kits are actualy illegal due to the fact the lens cant level out as factory fit units do!? Also every single HID fitted car I have seen has headlamp washers fitted, not sure if this is a requirement to.

I may be wrong about this but I think I've read about it somewhere.

Click to expand...

I think you're spot on about that.

Fairly easy to pick out too if you've ever had one driving behind you at night and if the car in front just happened to be a police car

I know Sam Firewarrior had some HIDs on his - fitted locally, although, he has now flogged his 1.8 for a Clio [and my, is it quick ].

ROFL at digging up old threads

Argonought said:

I think you're spot on about that.

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not really ... if you read ECE 53, the requirements for autolevelling and a spray for the headlamp glass have nothing to do with HIDs. Its actually a requirement for any light source that produces over 2000 lumens.

So a 21 watt HID is fine... as they produce 1900 lumens. While a 80 watt Halogen bulb would require levelling and washing.

They are probably illegal as there is no such thing as a H7 HID bulb in the ECE regs, therefore the lightsource is illegal. However, if you used a D2S HID in an aftermarket headlamp unit that was ECE approved, then there is nothing illegal about it at all

My apologies for replying to an old post, the reason I commented on the bulb alarm warning was that, a few other cars that I have added xenons to, have headlight bulb alarm warnings, I was pleasently surprised that the Stilo doesn't.

As for legalities, well I've now passed 3 MOT's on 2 different cars and at 3 different garages and not had a problem with the xenons/HID's. I've driven infront of, behind and on the side of police and they haven't had anything to say, yes, I have been pulled over for a different reason and even with the police looking for a reason to book you, they didn't have anything to say about my lights.

I have the factory fitted Xenons, self levelling and washers, car just passed MoT even though headlamp washers don't work.... so guess legal requirement for washers is not 100% checked.

Hi Suzi-Q, welcome to the forum (cool name, it's what I call my scooter )

I wasn't aware that different HID wattages were available, so thanks for raising that. I thought that the problem with HID 'bulbs' being retrofitted into original headlights was due to the point-source of the HID rather than the filament length in a halogen bulb. At least, that was the reason given for making any HID bulb upgrades illegal here in NZ.

I'd much rather hear your take on whether reflector design matters though, since you obviously know more about this than most people

Cheers,
-Alex

@ Alex With the factory fitted Xenon bulbs, there is a diffusion lens immediately infront of the bulb, this looks like the old headlamp style glass. I would guess that replacement bulbs do not have any form of diffusion and as you say will give a very narrow beam from a point source illumination.

The down side of factory fitted Xenons is fitting beam deflectors for driving on the continent, having done this a few times it is very hit and miss as to where to place the deflector :bang: I am constantly being flashed by drivers for dazzling them with badly defelcted beams

ursabear said:

The down side of factory fitted Xenons is fitting beam deflectors for driving on the continent, having done this a few times it is very hit and miss as to where to place the deflector :bang: I am constantly being flashed by drivers for dazzling them with badly defelcted beams

Click to expand...

Off to Germany in a few weeks time... did wonder where to stick the deflectors, finding this obviously saves me putting up a thread asking Its obviously more like 'pin the tail on the donkey' rather than an exact science then?

My apologies to everyone, I guess I shouldn't of spoken so soon. For the very first time in 2 years of putting aftermarket xenons in my cars, I was stopped for my xenon's in my Stilo and to make matters worse, it was by a policeman on foot. Was threatened with a Fixed Penalty Notice if I drove down that road again if he caught me.

Well needless to say, the first thing I did that next day, was go to an MOT garage and make sure that the previous garage had not just overlooked them, but properly done the tests.

Turned out that one of the lights was slightly off and affecting the beam pattern, got that sorted now. The garage now told me that I had absolutely nothing to worry about and that if any police pulled me for them now, they were talking rubbish.

My advice: Save yourself the money that the "stealers" charge, put in your own aftermarket kit and save yourself a lot of money, but just be sure that your bulbs are sitting properly and have your lights adjusted and checked on the machine that MOT garages have.

Can anyone actually give me a reason why they want to use Xenons instead of normal lights? Apart from "oh they make my car look cool", and "they are sooo bright?"

These lights are dangerous. I do a lot of night driving and I am constantly dazzled by these lights they should be made illegal. There is no need for them it is never dark enough for so bright a light to be required.

cazz said:

Can anyone actually give me a reason why they want to use Xenons instead of normal lights? Apart from "oh they make my car look cool", and "they are sooo bright?"

These lights are dangerous. I do a lot of night driving and I am constantly dazzled by these lights they should be made illegal. There is no need for them it is never dark enough for so bright a light to be required.

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Correctly adjusted factory fitted Xenons should not cause any problems with dazzling, it is poorly fitted after market Xenons that are causing problems. :bang: Just as bad are drivers who have ordinary halogens, but insist on driving around with front fog lamps on when there is no need.

Incidentally, I had no choice about Xenons as my car was an ex-demonstrator and came with them fitted. As for the cost of replacement bulbs if one should fail, I would never have Xenons by choice.

You must admit one thing though ursabear.

Those Xenons are great for giving those silly sods who drive around with their fog lights on all day a good taste of their own medicine (at least it would if you had Xenons on main beam )

They always get a blast from me

You don't really need xenons in a car which has a modern headlight design (round reflector with lots of shiney curvey extra bits). If you're driving round in an old thing such as a Mk1 Punto, the light produced on the road is shocking dude to crappy "early 90's" square shaped design.

Its not just people on the opposite side of the road blinding me its mercs and beemers (no pun there!) driving up behind dazzling me in my rear view and side mirrors i hate these lights, its like people are driving with full beams all the time