After I had my inspection sticker done, the mechanics over and MINI noticed my lights were pointing down. I installed the PIAA Extreme White H7's myself and I guess I kind of messed up on them. Well they gladly adjusted it for me for free and when I was driving around especially when pulling up to my house, I notice that even my halogens have a sharp cut off similiar to HID cut off's that I've seen floating around here on NAM. I also read once, on a HID conversion thread, that some older MINI's used the same Headlamps for HIDs and Halogens. Could this be the case? Does anyone want to chime in to verify this? I have a 04 MCS with halogen. If it's the same head lamps as the HID, maybe I can do a HID conversion kit and the beams won't scatter?

 

different headlight housing than xenon. the xenons have a opaque reflector shield. your are very likely to get some nasty glare if you try to use one of those plug n play hid kits.

 

The sharp cutoff with a slope up to the right has been the standard European headlight pattern since they started using H-4 bulbs, which was several decades ago.

 

Thanks for the info. That's all I wanted to know.

 

Yeah - that little black metal spoon under the filament of an H-4 is what creates the sharp cut-off at the top of the beam (the reflector inverts it).

 

Snypr, anyone ever attempt to make a shield and just pop rivet into a OEM or aftermarket housing. My Jag had same shield and Halogen set up prepped frm factory for Xenons.

I eventually installed a plug and play 8000 kit and it was better than factory.

Sounds like an easy mod