I regard the Halogens as high beams but I suppose you are correct, they may be more like fill lights - bright ones, but still for fill.

Our projectors are quite sophisticated, more than is common on other vehicles. Internally the projectors are both high and low beam. When on, the Xenon bulb remains fully illuminated at all times, (including as Daytime Running Lights), and a metal flipper flap rotates away for high beam.

In other words when you call up high beam with the steering wheel stalk, you are telling a solenoid to rotate a metal flap out of the light path so that the both the top and bottom half's of the internal reflector can project the light out.

This is not common on other vehicles. Often there are two projector lenses - one for high and the other for low, but the bulbs behind are often conventional halogens. My wifes 2005 4Motion Passat has that set up and it works well.

If you look closely, you will see our projector lenses have a Fresnel effect internally. Again, this is not common, and an example of how a LR is just more sophisticated than one of the far East produced units, (of which there seem to be millions about).

Also the halogens come on as well with the high beam request.

You may also note that when you do the flash to pass thing with the steering wheel stalk, it is the halogens that flash, not the HID's. This is because the HIDs' have a warm up time and where the HID's are not acting as Daytime Running Light and hence already on, there would be a problem - no flash to pass.

 

I should have expected this, but a dealer who sells online says the wiring harnesses are different between halogen and HID and you would have to splice them together. I asked for part numbers on the harness to verify, but haven't heard back.

 

I think you best go onto disco3 and do a search using +HID+upgrade or some such search phrase and interpret the posts for yourself.

What you almost cannot do is switch from the all halogen to the adaptive HID's, the ones that swivel and follow the steering wheel. That style is rare here in North America so the chances of finding them is about zero - and even then, the connectors are the same.

DISCO3.CO.UK - View topic - Xenon retrofit

DISCO3.CO.UK - View topic - factory installed xenons

 

The '06 HSE we bought has the follow the turn headlamps in it.
Grandson (6 yrs old) gets a kick out of seeing them go through their rotation when they are first turned on. We tell him the LR is crossing its eyes. It makes him think our LR3 is like the cars in that cartoon movie "Cars".

 

I never thought about those "eyes" that way - too old I guess. The thought would make a good advertising theme for LR.

I think the follow eyes are common in the EU as there is some rule that seems to require them. For me, given our cold weather here, the fact the 3 even starts is a relief; the idea of a frozen eyeball pointing at the moon on a cold dark morning just lacks appeal.

I assume they have been reliable for you however.

 

Reliability is something I wonder about.
On the one hand them "going through the motion" assures that they won't seize up I guess.
On the other hand, I worry that all that needless movement and something might wear out or break.

 

Yes you could get the SE with almost everything the HSE had accept the ultra hi-line sound system (14 Speaker/ higher power amp) or the adaptive headlights.

Everything else was an option. Nav system, lighting with HID lights and factory fogs, HD package, parking sensors, rain sensors, cold weather package, rear climate ctrl etc.

Yes the HID non-adaptive headlights are plug an play. The only difference is if the HID option is not turned on in the CCF they just power up a little slower than if it is.

 

This is the recent link I was trying to find - has some jpg's as well.

Advise please: Halogen headlight assembly-->Xenon headlight assembly - Land Rover Forums : Land Rover and Range Rover Forum

 

Thanks for the link. I had the same story from a dealer. Said it was a different harness. Didn't get an answer when I asked for the part numbers for the different harnesses. I was leaning towards aftermarket projectors and a relay harness. Sounds like that would be unnecessary if the factory projectors are decent. On my BMW it was a big difference between the factory and aftermarket projectors.

 

Somehow I cannot imagine that the aftermarket projectors has a Fresnel lens. They might have an adequate flat cutoff pattern, but I doubt it would be as precise as the OEM. The high price of the OEM is not all just markup or the fact that they are EU manufactured and I would certainly ask how the high and low beam out of the same projector lens is achieved.
It is expensive to do it properly.

Also do not confuse HID Xenon projector with halogen projector - they look the same from the front but are not the same from the steering wheel at night.