Citroen XM Forum

Dont HID Lamps NEED working washers now for MOTs ?? Or is that Zenon only lamps. Im sure it was HIDs that do..

If you like yellow headlamps (why?), HIDs won't provide that colour, even the 'warmest' 3200K or so.

White Exec wrote:If you like yellow headlamps (why?), HIDs won't provide that colour, even the 'warmest' 3200K or so.

Yes I'm aware of that....my lamps are yellow as I've tinted the internal lens with yellow film so I still run white bulbs.

Why like yellow lamps?...have a look at many old citroen..yellow lamps from the factory.

That includes the early French XM's.
There are some early NOS boxed headlights with yellow bulbs currently on french ebay.

John

HID don't need washers. Washers can be testable though if they are fitted to a vehicle WITH HID IIRC. but if its a non HID vehicle they dont need testing.

FYI Yellow as a colour has been shown in a study i read a while back to be better in some conditions and the same in others. IIRC it was fog and mist that it helped in..

If there was a yellow version of the Nightbreaker or similar bulbs, I wouldn't hesitate for a moment. BX and AX all ran on yellows for me... Not just the French flair, I actually prefer their visibility differences.

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I'm running yellow H4 bulbs in the bx. Bought a load of German ebay a few years ago. Good quality bulbs.

There are separate problems to solve here.

Getting sufficient light output.
Getting a safe (to others as well as the driver) and usable pattern of light.

The XM dip beam needed brand new components to provide just sufficient light output.
Bulb aging and lense degradation soon drops output to need driving change to maintain safety.
Most of us find this XM feature a bit irritating.

Changing the bulbs for new quality high white gives an improvement.
Service degradation though is slow and not easily noticed.

Yellow bulbs will give reduced total output so not a good idea for general use on an XM.
They do though work very well in fog where white can reflect badly.
So perhaps put the yellow bulbs in the fog lights.

The rest of the options typically take the XM lights outside their original approval.
Not something we have the expertise, resources or finance to change as a group.
Posts recommending others enter this area are likely to get moderated.

A CCC correspondent strongly recommended HID's for XM's in an article some years ago.
He has recently published a retraction of this advice in his column.

John

I bought an HID kit and fitted it to my old Series 2 V6 XM which I ended up removing pretty quickly.

The light output was not that much better but I did notice that cars coming the other way were flashing at you more often then they were without them. They're still sitting on a shelf in the workshop somewhere.

David.