V70: Electrical Xenon upgrade

[trs1]

Hi, does anyone know if its s straight swap from complete std halogen to clomplete xenon headlamp units in a V70 2008?

[ferg55]

Mechanically, yes. But electronically, not at all. The various control units in the car won't recognise they are fitted, and wont turn them on / off etc. Even if you managed to wire them directly to the battery to turn them on / off, they won't self level without the level sensors and linkages fitted at wheel. There is also the legal issue in that unless originally factory fitted they are not strictly road legal, although an MOT test station won't be able to tell and will only be concerned with whether they work, self level, and have automatic headlamp washers. Nevertheless, I wouldn't risk it as an insurance assessor would probably spot it as a modification if the worst were to happen.

Xenons aren't all they are cracked up to be - whilst better on full beam, they are more restricted than halogens on dipped beam, and cut off very abruptly fairly close in front of you, whereas halogens have a more gradual fade out into the distance. My wife's Golf VI halogens were far better than my S80 xenons for dipped beam driving.

[Bashy]

Originally Posted by ferg55

originally factory fitted

I believe that that means, that anything that is normally fitted at the factory in their eyes.

i.e. there is a halogen or a Xenon option from the factory

Fitting 2018 headlights to a 2008 is not Factory fitted

Also note that you can inform them and all would be well anyway, factory or retro fit

[trs1]

Thank you guys, thats good advice albeit not what i had planned, good job though I didnt buy the pair of healamp units from the salvage yard at £320.00 for the pair for my project V70!
I dont suppose you would know if the new Osram LED upgrade kit (or any other coe to that) for the stadard halogen reflector units works any better than standard halogen bulbs, the reviews look good but I am always a bit wary of reviews liked to product sales?

[Tannaton]

Originally Posted by ferg55

Xenons aren't all they are cracked up to be - whilst better on full beam, they are more restricted than halogens on dipped beam, and cut off very abruptly fairly close in front of you, whereas halogens have a more gradual fade out into the distance. My wife's Golf VI halogens were far better than my S80 xenons for dipped beam driving.

On some cars the HID implementation is quite poor but on Volvo models with Projector headlights with ABL the Xenons are brilliant, I think amongst the best of any headlights fitted to any car. I’ve had them on a XC70, XC60 and V40. They are substantially better than the halogen units. My wife has a Golf VII with halogens and they are nowhere near as effective as the ABL’s on my V40 & XC60 so I suspect your S80 had the older reflector type of HID or old bulbs?

But as you say it’s simply not possible to fit the factory HID units to replace halogen units on the p3 V70 as there is no capability to drive the self levelling or left/right aim - the headlights would need to be modified to remove the motors and lock them, and then as you say you then have the legality issues.

And for similar reasons and LED or HID bulb upgrade comes with a number of issues - switching, and if the MOT tester has read the manual - it’s a fail even if the beam pattern is ok. HID and LED need to use a projector system to work well.

Upgraded halogen bulbs is the only straight forward and legal route.

[ferg55]

Hi Tannaton,

Mine is a 57 plate with ABL, as far as I know these are projector type (they look like my old Avensis projector halogens). I bought it on 137K miles and presumably with the original bulbs, and was disappointed with dipped beam illumination straight away, especially as I was coming from halogens and particularly sought xenons in my next car - I thought it would be like night and day. I replaced the bulbs with new OE Osrams but this didn't seem to make much of a difference. My main concern was the dipped cut-off was too near, so I asked the MOT tester to align them to their highest legal limit. This helped a bit, but didn't improve things markedly. I also started to notice other car models when behind me on the motorway were much brighter, notably Mercedes E-Class and some Hondas. I'm reluctant to fit aftermarket bulbs with increased light output as I drive a lot on narrow C-roads, and blinding oncoming drivers can result in them hitting the verge at speed. That said, I'd like my xenons to be as bright as Volvo intended which I'm not sure they are. I have put it down to stone chipped lenses scattering the beam, but that's just a guess really.

[I-S]

I'm with ferg on this - the P3 Xenon ABLs are quite poor. The throw is very short, and when I raised them up to a reasonable level (judged by eye and how they would hit other cars below number plate etc - never got flashed but Volvo dealer lowered them again at service) they were a bit better, but the light output was quite patchy. The ABL function works quite slowly.

My Nissan Leaf Tekna had (fixed, lower-output so didn't need washers) LED dip-beam, and these were easily the equal of the Xenons in the V70. Our Lexus GS has full-LED headlamps with ABL, and these are spectacularly much better than the V70, with much wider, brighter and further illumination (but with horrific chromatic aberration - weird patches of red/yellow and blue), and the ABL works very much faster (but is totally pointless because the headlamps illuminate so widely that you gain nothing by turning them). The Leaf was replaced with a Tesla 3 with stock full-LED lamps and these are better than both Leaf and V70, but not quite up with the Lexus (but are a much cheaper/simpler multi-facet reflector setup (rather than projector), with no ABL, washers, etc).

[ferg55]

Originally Posted by trs1

I dont suppose you would know if the new Osram LED upgrade kit (or any other coe to that) for the stadard halogen reflector units works any better than standard halogen bulbs, the reviews look good but I am always a bit wary of reviews liked to product sales?

I looked at these in Halfords, and they are subtly marked on the box as not road legal. Halfords...the little rascals!

[100K+]

It would appear that lots of people have an issue with "short throw" of light pattern with Xenon lights with Volvo. Its an earlier model, (but the principal should still hold) my 2004 V70 AWD had "short throw" and one or two other minor lighting issues. Their adjustment is all supposedly automatic/computer controlled via sensors/modules/motors. I'm old school and offer this "solution" :
I have given mine a degree of manual adaption. The rear height sensor is a potentiometer fastened via a triangle bracket to the suspension arm. I made a new copy triangle but cut a slot to manually adjust the default position of the potentiometer arm. ( So the car now thinks the rear is slightly jacked up, so lifts the light ( via the motor) accordingly. ( This was originally done because the voltage reading at the potentiometer was marginally incorrect, so a SUM recalibration could not be undertaken. The slotted bracket changed the voltage enough to allow the SUM recal to be carried out.)
Additionally, I manually adjusted the headlight units height adjustment castellated nut to the midpoint and performed a SUM recalibration with VIDA/DICE and then found a quiet country road to fine tune the height to PERFECT distance with the white plastic castellated nut. I have never been flashed, but as an added precaution for the MOT I lower the lights by 2 complete turns before presentation. - no problem there either.

Cheers
Bob

[Tatsfield]

On a previous car, not a Volvo, I had dipped halogens that would have come second to a candlestick in a light competition. Because I deemed these to be a safety issue, I tried using better high performance halogen bulbs but these burned out or dimmed too soon, as the small print on their packaging admitted would be the case. Eventually I bit the bullet and installed after market xenon gas discharge bulbs which produced a perfect light. These bulbs meet the legal requirement for projector lamp housing, they were only on the dipped beam and so a slow start didn't hamper full beam flashing but they failed the legal test on self levelling. I took the view that most cars with such light sources tend to be very bright and the self levelling is too slow to make much difference so I installed them and had no problems in terms of their blinding oncoming cars or in passing the MoT where the testers didn't seem to understand that the car hadn't always had modern bulbs and just checked the levels. I used these lights for 5 years and never had any problem and considered that going back to dim dipped lights would have been a major safety issue and never considered I was inconsiderate to other motorists.

So my attitude is that if you consider the lighting on your car to fall below safe standards, you should fit better lighting and deal with MoT and servicing issues as and when they arise.