So last night I finally upgraded the 93 400e to Euro lamps from Bekkers. I have always loved the big-lamp European elegance look. I used to have a 73 280 in college with Euro lamps. What great cars.

Anyway, they did not send bulbs and forgot to mention that they weren't included. I would consider it sacreligious to remove the euros now, so the car looks great but has no headlights.

I see that they require a hella bulb, and a good one is the hella 55/100. Anyone know where I can get these in the Dallas / Ft Worth area? Otherwise, we will have to take the Escape to dinner tonight! Help!

Thanks,

Jack
93 400e

Whenthe light went out on my 97 540i I was distressed to find they use an H7 65w bulb for low beams. I went to a local AZ and a Discount Aut store and neither had it on a Friday night. The next day I found one at the Carquest because the dealer parts dept was closed.

It sounds like you need a H4 bulb which is about as common as it gets. All of the stores would have had it. Finding one in those wattages will be another story. The standard H4 is 55/60w and should be less than 5 bucks at those stores. I would be very carefull how much driving one does using 100w with standard wiring. (in other words a duty cycle or more than 20% - my guess).

If you haven't changed the wiring and added relays (prewired relays and kits are availavle on internet for about $50) then I would stick to 55/60, preferably as Hella +30 or equivalent Philips "Premium". Or I am about to try the Philips +50 "Vision Plus" bulbs. All these are 55/60, but with redesigned filaments and/or gas mixtures. Anything besides a stock H4 will be hard to find except at maybe a Rice Boy shop. Many people use overwattage (55/100, 85/100) on stock wiring with no problem, but enough people have fried their wiring/connectors that I wouldn't do it without a wiring change.
The 55/60 H4 bulbs are cheap and readily available, install a set and then look for which way to go with wiring, over wattage, etc. If you want to look at wiring or specialty bulbs after you give the 55/60s a try, contact me and I will email you a handful of useful links and articles. Good luck.



[Edited by JCE on 02-23-2001 at 10:46 AM]

JCE- let us know what you think about the bulbs you will be trying.

tks-fad

Go to the fast lane catalog and in search type in 64195 these are hella h4 55/100watts 12v, 64194 is h4 80/100watts 12 v

Thanks for all the help. Once I deduced that h4 was a generic type of bulb instead of a Hella-specific part, I was able to call Autozone and get a Sylvania substitute. What a difference! Worth every penny of the $500. The car now looks just like it should. It is obvious that these were the lamps designed to go on the car. Can't wait for it to get dark to see how much better they light the road.

Jack
93 400e

By the way fyi for the guy with the BMW the H7 bulb is also availbe in fast lane, its a 64210 and they also have 64210LL which is long life.

What is the website for Fast Lane?

This is Fastlane, on the top of the webpage you'll see a button called Fastlane http://www.peachparts.com/catalog