Projector Retrofit Went Wrong! sigh
#17
01-25-2006, 01:46 PM
Originally Posted by newbieg35
any other companies do this retro fit?
#18
01-25-2006, 01:58 PM
yea... there is a guy that E_K recommended me. i am trying to see if they will do mine. He seems really interested but he's really expensive. But he does know his stuff though.. 
I'll copy what he emailed me here:
" well,
E: i am really unhappy with the result of the retrofit.
E: Yes it was my fault for giving you the green flag on letting you mount on
the E46 projectors still(so that i cannot align them) I should have just
stopped u there but i thought you were a professional and would be able to
level them appropriately. The two E46 projectors are not leveled the same.
I can see big differences in the angl that its mounted on.
J: I am a professional and expressed that I would rather not mount the projectors this way but YOU told us to go ahead and do it when presented with options. When bench tested the cut off lines were aligned and the projectors are mounted. The projectors are aligned so if you can take pictures about what you are referring to that would help alot.
[What other OPTIONS was he talking about:
"Ok, here is the deal with the lights. The steerable lights will work but in order to do so we need to make the bi-xenon stationary to mount the bering to the bottom of the bracket.
So basically you can have the steerable lights and the bi-xenon can not be adjusted (we will set them the best we can to factory specs) or the bottom light does not steer but you can level the bi-xenon.
Let me know so we can continue with this. "
That was from a direct email from the time we discussed this]
E: Also on the E46 projector, you used self tapping screws and that also
drilled out of the headlight itself. I would have expected a clearner way
to do this. I did give you an extra set of headlights to work on. You
should have marked up on that headlight and then proceeded onto the real
headlight. As i said before there were many random holes that WERE NOT
covered, which is not the main point here. It is the holes that actually
exist. Holes=condensation. Condensation inside the headlight is just
inacceptable.
J: We had to drill out of the headlight to stabilize the mounts for the projector to rotate on, You cant see the screws when installed, Would you rather the mounts break loose and have no screw holes?
[omg noo. i rather him use other screws like what E_K did and find another way so that its not digging outside of the headlight]
E: You did not find a way to fit the ignitor for the E46 projector so that the
ignitor would stay in the headlight with the cap closed on it. Instead you
have it so that i can figure it out on my own. IMO, this is not
professional at all. This should have been considered before you started
the retrofit. Everything should look like stock or be modified to stock. I
should not have to do any modifying myself.
J: In order to do the you need to first mount the ballast to your car's firewall then route it to the back of the projector. I can not do that without the vehicle here.
[well, what he could have done is IMO, thought this through and have the ignitor already mounted inside the headlight. THen there wouldn't be this problem]
E: For the bulbs, it was not a wise decision to GLUE them in. You should have
made some sort of bracket to hold them in. Instead you killed the bulb
holder and glued them. what if i wanted to change the bulbs to 8000k or
4100k bulbs??? now i cannot do that.
J: There was not enough clearence for the bulbs holders, I didnt kill anything thats just how it worked out- there was not enough clearence. Just take a flat head and pop the bulb out if you need to upgrade it.
[what i wanted was a professional install, not some glue job where i can't take the bulb out easily and i have to take it out by prying on it]
E: Also it seems that the wiring could have been wayy more smoother. The
wiring could have came out all at the parking light hole and made a
modification to the daytime running lights cap so that the wires came out
there.. This project seems like it was not very thought out right.
J: No, if we extended the wiring to come out of the parkign light holes the Demon Eyes would not function properly because we would have to add length to the wire. Drilling them out of the housing is the cleanest way to do this. Again you dont see the back of the housing. Though out right are you kidding?
[perhaps you could have done something else, maybe put the control box inside the headlight??]
E: the angel eyes. This was not done correctly. the angel eye cathod is
already coming apart. This should have been rechecked when you said you
were checking everything.
J: It was checked, the light must have been dropped by the shipping company to get them to pop off like that.
[if it pops out so easily, so when i drive the car, will this happen also? I mean the car moves up and down so easily..... Does that mean like every 2 weeks or every month i would have to ship these headlights back to you?]
E: Also the inside of the headlight on the passenger side was not cleaning
cleaned. The inside still has a coat of that oem stuff thats inside. you
said you polished them and it looked good but i think you only checked the
driver side. the driver side is pretty good but there were still some parts
that were left coated in that junk oem layer stuff in the inside.
J: We thouroughly cleaned the inside of both lenses with virgin solvents.
[well evidently it was not enough and i don't think you rechecked the passenger lense]
E: you did not create a wiring harness so that it takes power straight from the
battery. this may have caused my stock wiring to burn up and then that
would just be such a pain in the *** to fix.
J: Burn up? the HID ballasts only have a 35 watt draw, your halogens take 75 watts. The Decreased draw is going to burn up the wiring? Cheap fake HID bulbs that operate on 100 watts burn up a cars wiring NOT Xenons! Are you jsut making up stuff now?
[no i am not making stuff up. This actualli happened to a guy on the coupe boards. He plugged an 06 headlight into his car and somehow his wiring got all burned up. Think about it, powering up 4 ballasts through stock wiring when it wasn't made to handle that? The small guage wiring? I think this is very possible. The wiring harness would get rid of this risk. Many PROFESSIONAL retrofitters do include a wiring harness]
E: since you are a professional installer, all of the above should have not
been mistakes that were made. Especially when i sent you an extra set of
headlights. These headlights will look awful when they are turned on
because the angle of the projectors are different and will look very
awkward.
J: I saw the headlights lit up, they do not look awful. I am a professional, there is NO mistake you told us to lock down those lenses! I explained to you that this was a CUSTOM install that was NEVER done before and I accomplished it, there are always going to be issues with clearence and we put 100 hours into the lower projector alone which anyone else would have paind $1500 alone.
[Yes you told me this was a custom job, but i've seen plenty of custom jobs that have never been done before and it turned out just fine. all of the outside including the rear parts looked pretty much stock. Even my friend who is doing it himself does not have any wiring sticking out as much as you did] I would have paid for that much money if i knew it was going to be better than this. ]
E: I think i deserve a refund on the labor. This was not a clean job that was
done and i WILL have plenty of problems if i decide to put these on(which i
will not). I want the rest of my parts that i sent you so that i can see if
i can piece some things together.
J: We have 150 hours in the lights I can't just refund you, there is nothing wrong with these lights. What future problems are you expecting?
[Can he really say what kind of problems?? OMg.. i think he better check this board....]
Please respond
Ed Lin
All your other parts are going back to you,
-Justin M. Hartenstein"
There is another coupe owner thats had the same awful experience from aacstyle.com He'll post here too.
Ed
I'll copy what he emailed me here:
" well,
E: i am really unhappy with the result of the retrofit.
E: Yes it was my fault for giving you the green flag on letting you mount on
the E46 projectors still(so that i cannot align them) I should have just
stopped u there but i thought you were a professional and would be able to
level them appropriately. The two E46 projectors are not leveled the same.
I can see big differences in the angl that its mounted on.
J: I am a professional and expressed that I would rather not mount the projectors this way but YOU told us to go ahead and do it when presented with options. When bench tested the cut off lines were aligned and the projectors are mounted. The projectors are aligned so if you can take pictures about what you are referring to that would help alot.
[What other OPTIONS was he talking about:
"Ok, here is the deal with the lights. The steerable lights will work but in order to do so we need to make the bi-xenon stationary to mount the bering to the bottom of the bracket.
So basically you can have the steerable lights and the bi-xenon can not be adjusted (we will set them the best we can to factory specs) or the bottom light does not steer but you can level the bi-xenon.
Let me know so we can continue with this. "
That was from a direct email from the time we discussed this]
E: Also on the E46 projector, you used self tapping screws and that also
drilled out of the headlight itself. I would have expected a clearner way
to do this. I did give you an extra set of headlights to work on. You
should have marked up on that headlight and then proceeded onto the real
headlight. As i said before there were many random holes that WERE NOT
covered, which is not the main point here. It is the holes that actually
exist. Holes=condensation. Condensation inside the headlight is just
inacceptable.
J: We had to drill out of the headlight to stabilize the mounts for the projector to rotate on, You cant see the screws when installed, Would you rather the mounts break loose and have no screw holes?
[omg noo. i rather him use other screws like what E_K did and find another way so that its not digging outside of the headlight]
E: You did not find a way to fit the ignitor for the E46 projector so that the
ignitor would stay in the headlight with the cap closed on it. Instead you
have it so that i can figure it out on my own. IMO, this is not
professional at all. This should have been considered before you started
the retrofit. Everything should look like stock or be modified to stock. I
should not have to do any modifying myself.
J: In order to do the you need to first mount the ballast to your car's firewall then route it to the back of the projector. I can not do that without the vehicle here.
[well, what he could have done is IMO, thought this through and have the ignitor already mounted inside the headlight. THen there wouldn't be this problem]
E: For the bulbs, it was not a wise decision to GLUE them in. You should have
made some sort of bracket to hold them in. Instead you killed the bulb
holder and glued them. what if i wanted to change the bulbs to 8000k or
4100k bulbs??? now i cannot do that.
J: There was not enough clearence for the bulbs holders, I didnt kill anything thats just how it worked out- there was not enough clearence. Just take a flat head and pop the bulb out if you need to upgrade it.
[what i wanted was a professional install, not some glue job where i can't take the bulb out easily and i have to take it out by prying on it]
E: Also it seems that the wiring could have been wayy more smoother. The
wiring could have came out all at the parking light hole and made a
modification to the daytime running lights cap so that the wires came out
there.. This project seems like it was not very thought out right.
J: No, if we extended the wiring to come out of the parkign light holes the Demon Eyes would not function properly because we would have to add length to the wire. Drilling them out of the housing is the cleanest way to do this. Again you dont see the back of the housing. Though out right are you kidding?
[perhaps you could have done something else, maybe put the control box inside the headlight??]
E: the angel eyes. This was not done correctly. the angel eye cathod is
already coming apart. This should have been rechecked when you said you
were checking everything.
J: It was checked, the light must have been dropped by the shipping company to get them to pop off like that.
[if it pops out so easily, so when i drive the car, will this happen also? I mean the car moves up and down so easily..... Does that mean like every 2 weeks or every month i would have to ship these headlights back to you?]
E: Also the inside of the headlight on the passenger side was not cleaning
cleaned. The inside still has a coat of that oem stuff thats inside. you
said you polished them and it looked good but i think you only checked the
driver side. the driver side is pretty good but there were still some parts
that were left coated in that junk oem layer stuff in the inside.
J: We thouroughly cleaned the inside of both lenses with virgin solvents.
[well evidently it was not enough and i don't think you rechecked the passenger lense]
E: you did not create a wiring harness so that it takes power straight from the
battery. this may have caused my stock wiring to burn up and then that
would just be such a pain in the *** to fix.
J: Burn up? the HID ballasts only have a 35 watt draw, your halogens take 75 watts. The Decreased draw is going to burn up the wiring? Cheap fake HID bulbs that operate on 100 watts burn up a cars wiring NOT Xenons! Are you jsut making up stuff now?
[no i am not making stuff up. This actualli happened to a guy on the coupe boards. He plugged an 06 headlight into his car and somehow his wiring got all burned up. Think about it, powering up 4 ballasts through stock wiring when it wasn't made to handle that? The small guage wiring? I think this is very possible. The wiring harness would get rid of this risk. Many PROFESSIONAL retrofitters do include a wiring harness]
E: since you are a professional installer, all of the above should have not
been mistakes that were made. Especially when i sent you an extra set of
headlights. These headlights will look awful when they are turned on
because the angle of the projectors are different and will look very
awkward.
J: I saw the headlights lit up, they do not look awful. I am a professional, there is NO mistake you told us to lock down those lenses! I explained to you that this was a CUSTOM install that was NEVER done before and I accomplished it, there are always going to be issues with clearence and we put 100 hours into the lower projector alone which anyone else would have paind $1500 alone.
[Yes you told me this was a custom job, but i've seen plenty of custom jobs that have never been done before and it turned out just fine. all of the outside including the rear parts looked pretty much stock. Even my friend who is doing it himself does not have any wiring sticking out as much as you did] I would have paid for that much money if i knew it was going to be better than this. ]
E: I think i deserve a refund on the labor. This was not a clean job that was
done and i WILL have plenty of problems if i decide to put these on(which i
will not). I want the rest of my parts that i sent you so that i can see if
i can piece some things together.
J: We have 150 hours in the lights I can't just refund you, there is nothing wrong with these lights. What future problems are you expecting?
[Can he really say what kind of problems?? OMg.. i think he better check this board....]
Please respond
Ed Lin
All your other parts are going back to you,
-Justin M. Hartenstein"
There is another coupe owner thats had the same awful experience from aacstyle.com He'll post here too.
Ed
#19
01-25-2006, 02:27 PM
J: Burn up? the HID ballasts only have a 35 watt draw, your halogens take 75 watts. The Decreased draw is going to burn up the wiring? Cheap fake HID bulbs that operate on 100 watts burn up a cars wiring NOT Xenons! Are you jsut making up stuff now?
Stock halogens is 55 watts. Not 75W.
While it's true that once warmed up the HIDs use less watts than the halogens, during the initial few seconds, the amp draw is higher with HIDs compared to halogens. Tony with his quad setup from Gdragon, blew his fuses.
The concern I had with my lights, is that if I were to fire up 4 HID lights all at once, there's a huge amp draw suddenly. The stock wires are about 16 ga. That's why I went with a custom harness drawing power directly from the battery with 12 ga wires for my TL projectors in the fog/high beam.
Stock halogens is 55 watts. Not 75W.
While it's true that once warmed up the HIDs use less watts than the halogens, during the initial few seconds, the amp draw is higher with HIDs compared to halogens. Tony with his quad setup from Gdragon, blew his fuses.
The concern I had with my lights, is that if I were to fire up 4 HID lights all at once, there's a huge amp draw suddenly. The stock wires are about 16 ga. That's why I went with a custom harness drawing power directly from the battery with 12 ga wires for my TL projectors in the fog/high beam.
#21
01-25-2006, 05:59 PM
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Hmmm interesting.
I was going to get my demon eyes ... and have them install it, but i live in boston and my car is lowered, if supposedly those things come off that easily then I don't think I should do it...plus doesn't sound like you're having the time of your life either. I'll stick with my factory plain headlights.
Too bad too, those headlights look like they would've been awesome.
Sorry to hear that man.
I was going to get my demon eyes ... and have them install it, but i live in boston and my car is lowered, if supposedly those things come off that easily then I don't think I should do it...plus doesn't sound like you're having the time of your life either. I'll stick with my factory plain headlights.
Too bad too, those headlights look like they would've been awesome.
Sorry to hear that man.
#22
01-25-2006, 06:53 PM
#23
01-25-2006, 08:54 PM
#25
01-25-2006, 11:16 PM
Since the headlights cannot currently be hooked up to the car, we powered them up the other day with my modified PC power supply.
Alot of the foreground lighting of the top E46 projectors is lost from the bezel covering a part of the lower part of the lens. The lenses were the stock frosted lens with the horizontal line in the middle. That's why I think ultimately a 2.5" projector will have to go on top, the bezel is just going to kill your foreground. Again, this isn't anyone's fault here.
The M45 projector had better output, and the sharpness was a bit better. There wasn't much color, though. Both projector's cutoffs were about as sharp as a stock E39.
Alot of the foreground lighting of the top E46 projectors is lost from the bezel covering a part of the lower part of the lens. The lenses were the stock frosted lens with the horizontal line in the middle. That's why I think ultimately a 2.5" projector will have to go on top, the bezel is just going to kill your foreground. Again, this isn't anyone's fault here.
The M45 projector had better output, and the sharpness was a bit better. There wasn't much color, though. Both projector's cutoffs were about as sharp as a stock E39.
#26
01-26-2006, 09:41 PM
#27
01-26-2006, 09:45 PM
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#28
01-26-2006, 10:06 PM
meatbag: make sure he glues the angel eyes carefully without having lots of glue stains and make sure he holds it to the bezel longer so it does not come off. Then i would tell him to becareful of the bezel after he paints it cause on mine, the corners were starting to chip off already.
Ed
Ed
#29
01-27-2006, 10:54 AM
This is just a bunch of B.S. Sorry to hear about all your mishaps and sounds like this guy is a moron and shouldn't have a job that he does. Doesn't seem to be professional at all, and you should get a refund.
I'm in the market of getting some new lights, so what other options are out there and from someone who is professional and will get the job right without the runaround and half assed work?
I'm in the market of getting some new lights, so what other options are out there and from someone who is professional and will get the job right without the runaround and half assed work?
