Why do you need to open and close the hood? Is that to make sure the housing is located properly? I would think the housings bolt into the same fixed position as the halogens and have the same fit in the openings in the hood? I have not studied the headlights in any great detail

 

Today, I picked up the Xenon 25W Retrofits I ordered at South Shore MINI outside Boston, MA.

I took them home and removed the OEM Halogen lights and fitted in the new Xenons in my 2015 Countryman.

Then I went back to the dealer and had the vehicle computer "coded" and they also fine-tuned the light alignments.

Everything went smoothly.

Two things about the MINI Xenon Retrofits for the R60/R61:

1. The color "temperature" of the Xenons is MUCH whiter than the stock halogens, and the brightness is greatly increased too. In short, the Xenons kick *** over the Halogens. Based on one 30 minute drive back home from the dealer in darkness tonight, there's NO doubt the Xenon retros are worth the $.

2. The Xenon housings are also mostly all "black", and they look great on the vehicle as well.

Many thanks to those here who posted and also helped give me guidance. Also, kudos to my MA, the parts manager, and service manger at South Shore MINI. Mine was the first time they experienced this specific upgrade, and they were wonderful throughout the whole process.

 

Glen boston- thanks very much for your review. That's definitely going to loosen up the wallet a bit.

 

 

Just checked and stealership quoted me $1378.94 for the lights alone and $250 for the install. Yikes. Really? I think I will be buying them from ECS, install myself, and having stealership code for $125.

 

Chini:

My sense is there's a bunch of different ways (offerings) to purchase the official MINI R60/R61 Retrofit Xenons at some sort of discount off list. As I mentioned above, I did the install myself. If you're handy, it's not hard. A couple points that might help:

1. Each light assembly is held in with four bolts. 10mm socket wrench does the trick.
2. Three of the four bolt holes have a threaded insert that "adjusts" the assembly to "fit" properly through the hood hole openings. I put the Halogen OEM assembly on a table next to the new Xenon, and measured from the Halogen and "matched" the depth on the Xenons of each of those three inserts.
3. The fourth bolt hole, the one closest to the windshield, has no threaded adjustment. I took a pencil and outlined where its plastic tab from the assembly mated to the metal of the car which helped make it simpler to align the new Xenons.
4. I did each of the two lights separately, and "SLOWLY" closed the hood a bunch of times and played with the various bolt adjustments to get the housing to fit nicely with the hood opening.
5. The driver's side assembly has a clip underneath that holds the tube bringing washer fluid to the hood nozzles. I removed the tube before removing any bolts, and then took off the clip once the old assembly was removed on the workbench and transferred it to the new Xenon assembly.
6. The "Coding" by the dealer must be done. If you switch out the assemblies on your own like I did, make sure you get it coded before needing to drive at night. It seems like it takes the dealer between 60 and 90 minutes to do the coding, and think it's entirely reasonable for the dealer to charge appropriately for that service.

I debated whether a $1k or so for new headlights was worth it. Sure, it would be cheaper to get them installed from the factory. That cost would be $600 ($500 for the Xenons plus $100 to get the black-out housing color.) So, the bottom line to me was this: is it worth spending an "extra" $400 bucks or so to get the Xenons. Presuming I keep using the car over the next four or six years, the question was easy to answer yes. And of course, maybe we can sell our old OEM Halogen assemblies to reduce that net cost further.

As I said earlier, now having gone through the process and actually experienced the new Xenons at night, it's obvious that the Xenons kick-*** over the OEM Halogens. There simply no doubt the Xenons are worth having.

MINI as a company deserves a lot of credit for designing and selling this new Retrofit, which is basically plug-n-play with a little coding at the dealer. Not many auto companies would even bother with offering such an Accessory. MINI deserves our thanks, and support, on this one.

Hope the above is some help.

 

yeah, my dealership wanted to charge me a buttload too, so then I checked out ECS, and they wanted $994 and $100+ for shipping, which came out to about $1100. Still too pricey and they wouldn't budge on pricing.

Ended up getting them from Flow Mini in Winston-Salem for $921, shipped to CA. You might find it cheaper if you call some other dealerships.

PM me if you want more details on who to talk to over there..good luck!

 

Got mine installed on Thursday. These instructions were perfect. I used a vernier caliper to transfer the measurement from the adjustment spacers from the old lights to the new lights. Fit was perfect. I had the stealership check the aim after they did the coding and they said it was dead on. This upgrade is money well spent. The amount of light is dramatically improved, and the looks of the vehicle are too.

 

Just completed the install and I coded it myself. Once I installed the lights they turned on, once I started the engine they started strobing "pulsing", and the warning indicator went on as well. All my settings in NCS Expert looked right on track with PWM_FL_BEI_XENON being set to wert_01. In order to get the pulsing to stop I had to change PWM_AL to wert_01 from wert_02. I found this using NCS Dummy, with my module being set to FRM3_R56.C36. The Highs & Lows worked perfectly.

I went into NCS Expert to disable the high/low bulb checks to get rid of the warnings:

Low Beams
KALTUE_AL_M1_6_M2_38
WARMUE_AL_M1_6_M2_38
nicht_aktiv

High Beams
KALTUE_FL_M2_6_M1_04
WARMUE_FL_M2_6_M1_4
nicht_aktiv

For some reason when disabling the high beams bulb check the warning indicator goes away, but now I can't turn on the high beams, I can only flash the high beams. Low beams work as advertised.

Is this normal? Is there a way to be able to disable the high beam bulb check and still be able to turn on your high beams?

 

I got the same problem as you, but mine is a 09 Cooper S (pre 09/09 production) I've played with most of the FRM setting still no luck.......

 

I installed mine myself and had them coded and aimed at the dealer. No issues whatsoever. Flash to pass works fine, and high beams work just fine as well.

 

I wonder what setting the dealer set, that is different than what we are finding in the FRM module. Flash to pass works great but high beams won't stay on they just turn off, than they turn back on once you turn off high beams.

 

Did you use the same code as the R56 pre 9/2009 did ? Don't know what the actual code is for these is NCS. I know the dealers had no issues with coding these one. One guy had an issues with the R56 ones , but it was just a mix up by the dealership.

 

try to update the datens to v53 before you code the lights again, because I got low's and hi's after I updated to v53 with PWN_FL_BEI_BIXENON to wert_01, it was strobing like a disco before the update with the same setting, so I had to use wert_02, and it doesnt let me use high beam. Flasher works tho........ (it maybe slightly different that you guys as I got the FRM2 only, check with NCSdummy before you code)

 

Can you post a link to the New Datens, I'm on v51.

 

What code are you referring to?

 

For the R56 version. Might work ?

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...rofit-kit.html

 

here's the link
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ml#post3979610

 

I'm already on the v53 datens, I forgot I already upgraded. I still don't have high beams :( Is there a newer datens file than v53?

 

I installed myself and had them coded at the dealer. They work fine. However, I've determined if the lights are on when I turn on the ignition I get a bulb warning on the display. It only happens if I turn on the lights before the ignition. Anybody else have this feature?

 

Hmmm. That might be an issue here in Canada where our headlights automatically turn on.

 

There won't be any issue. I've never had any issues with mine (and I have auto headlights as well). If they're coded correctly, they will function as if they were factory installed. Most of the people with problems have either attempted the coding themselves or went to a dealer that did not know how to code them properly. My dealership knew exactly what to do, and I was the first person in South Florida to get these.

 

I agree with ASKtheteach. I did my own retrofit three weeks ago now. Brought it to the dealer to have coded. I was the first person to ask the dealer (South Shore MINI, Rockland, MA) to do this to a R60/R61, but they knew exactly what to do. Everything works perfectly, including the high-beam headlights.

 

For those who did the install by themselves...did you get an error on the dashboard BEFORE taking it to the dealership for coding?

I just installed my lights and tested them. I get a Left High Beam error on the dashboard and wanted to know if that was normal.

I'm getting them coded tomorrow, but I wanted to make sure my lights were physically normal before I take it in for coding.

 

It perfectly normal if you dont code it. everything bad will happen unless it has been coded. You can try the lights by turning the ignition on only to see if it works or not. Once you start the engine, it will strobe, hi, low beam failure without coding