Volvo V50 headlight swap
 

Hi All

New to this forum, so be gentle.

I have an '08 v50 2 litre Diesel.

It has the Bi-xenon lights. The lamps have cracks & the projector lenses have rust.

I was thinking of repairing them. However I've been offered a set of Halogen headlamps at a very good price. These are also from an '08 S60.

Physically these headlamps would fit my car & could be a quick solution to my problem.

Would these be a 'plug in & play' job or could they cause all kinds of explosions & general nastiness?

Thanks in advance for any replies to this.

S40 & V50 lights are the same S60 ?? Really dont think they would physically fit

as for going From Bi-xenon to halogen , well That Wont plug + play at all

Totally different

you can get replacement projector units to fit inside , have a read of the V50 headlight upgrade threads on here,
you Can get replacement outer covers as well
And you can get replacment bi-xenon light units as a Whole thing,

please do NOT attempt to just swap the connectors to H7 type, xenon bulbs work at a VERY high voltage , 12vdc they aint,,

Sorry. Meant to say S40 instead of S60.

My bad.

I have halogeen units with hid kit in so not 100% on your bixenon unit.

But you will also need to get it from a model similar to yours. On this platform there are 2 versions of these headlights for the S40 / V50's so will need to be from the right one.

Maybe have a look at the connector pins and see if they matchup to plug into the unit? The balast for you xenons etc are in your unit already im assuming so if the connector pins match for the halogen ones it should be plug in.

Bixenons and halogens have totally different plugs, wirings and levelling system - simply wont go. S40/V50 though are interchangeable, just differ with beziel type on older types but your is FL I think?
unfortunately you need to either look for replacement units or do as andy_d listed, no other options.
On a sidenote - be aware that if you replace whole lamp assembly from another car your car will probably trigger an error and those will require Vida or dealership visit to calibrate them (self levelling system).

Thanks for the replies lads.

Food for thought there indeed.

I've never had a car with a headlamp set up like this before.

Where would I get a set of projector lenses to suit & what would the likely cost be?

https://www.retrofitlab.com/en/aharo...-design-1.html

edit: You'd need the RHD versions of course - I'm not sure about the D1 or D2 option

They look interesting alright.

My only concern is that they seem to be for D2S bulbs. Mine seem to be the D1S type. (the ones with the little box directly attached to the back of the bulb).

Will either type fit?

Edit; There's a D1S option on the menu. didn't see it before.

Just a quick update on this.

I took PaddyB's advise on this & ordered a set of projector units from retrofitlab.

The units arrived promptly & I fitted them.

They worked well, but somehow something seemed wrong with the visual apperance of the headlights.

I assumed I'd done something wrong with the installation & took them out to examine the situation.

Quickly I realised that the new units were 10-20mm longer than the old ones.
This resulted in the 'off' apperance. They'd pushed out the circular plastic fittings ahead of the lens.

I just didn't want to go through the whole rigmarole of contacting the suppliers & so forth..

Anyway, I took the lenses off the new units & put my old lenses onto the new reflectors.

I installed my conjured up 'Franken-unit' into the job & hoped for the best..

Success \0/!

The job worked out well, but it was a bit more hardshippy that I'd first expected.

Overall, I'm happy with the result, but it niggles me a bit as to why the new units didn't fit first go.

Hey Filmer

Interesting [and recent] thread on headlight upgrades, thank you.

Can you advise specifically what you ordered from RetrofitLab please? How helpful were they with the ordering and shipping from the US too?

I'm considering options for levelling up the Fiddy's lights but want to stay legal, MOT friendly and low-key. Can you post any pics from your build or post install?

Thanks Filmer