[groovy_jr]

....now is this a one off....my MINI wasn't meant to have Bi-Xenons....or was it?!? (I ordered standard xenon's not the all singing all dancing ones !!)

....my dealer says its the first one he has seen with them like this.....oh please be a one off! LOL

They are AMAZING at night!

[AustraliaMiniMan]

Bi-xenons?

OK I know what Bi means in Australia and it's something to get excited about when your girlfriend tells you. But when my Mini dealer comes up to me and starts talking about Bi.. well Lets just say I expect $2000 of the sticker price before I go that way

[ant]

Quote:

Originally posted by AustraliaMiniMan
Bi-xenons?

OK I know what Bi means in Australia and it's something to get excited about when your girlfriend tells you. But when my Mini dealer comes up to me and starts talking about Bi.. well Lets just say I expect $2000 of the sticker price before I go that way

LMAO!

Apparently Bi-Xenons are Xenon dip beam and Xenon full-beam... Not nearly as exciting as Bi-Girlfriend!

[Damo]

Jammy Git!

Any chance of a close up pic of your lights

[AidenL]

Didnt think they had a bi option......

The lights, not the girlfriend........and $2000 would be cheap for that option !!

[moonshine]

bi xenons on the new 7 series mean that they have xenons as low beam, plus a xenon setup in the high beam too. (they also have a h7 filament bulb too.

my cooper has xemons, but only on low neam, the high beam is still a h7 filament bulb.

is your setup xenon (HID) on low and high beam, or is your high beam just a regular bulb?

The manual suggests that it should only be xenon on low beam.

GERRY

[noahe]

All of the MINI's only have a HID bulb for the low or dipped beam setting. The high's are halogen.

Bi-Xenon's are very expensive. Usually more than double the cost of single HID systems, ironic, since they share a single ballast system.

The 7-Series has a Halogen bulb as well as the Bi-Xenon's for the flash-to-pass function. A HID Xenon bulb takes a couple of seconds to fire-up, and also dies a little each time it's lit. So you'd do well not to turn them on and off a whole lot. This is why the 7-Series uses a halogen to blink, and a HID when you switch it fully on to high-beam.

[groovy_jr]

.....I am only going on what my dealer says....but i have to say...full beam is AMAZING!

[Basil]

Quote:

Originally posted by groovy_jr
....now is this a one off....my MINI wasn't meant to have Bi-Xenons....or was it?!? (I ordered standard xenon's not the all singing all dancing ones !!)

....my dealer says its the first one he has seen with them like this.....oh please be a one off! LOL

They are AMAZING at night!

OK, can someone in the know confirm whether this is simply a case of a "cock-up" or whether there are two different Xenon options, perhaps for different markets.

The reason I ask, is because If i'm paying $1100AU for a "low beam" HID bulb only, I'm going to be one ****ed-off customer. And if the ozzie market gets "dipped" only xenons, I'll try and cancel them.

Thanks

[Basil]

I've sent an e-mail to my dealer requesting the deal on Australian spec cars.

[karmuze]

Basil: The xenon option on the MINI uses HID for low beam (dipped beam)--the high beam (main beam) is identical to the standard headlamps--an H7 halogen bulb. However, the xenon bulb stays lit for the main beam light as well, so you get the advantage of xenon on both beams.

I was trying to determine if I could retrofit Xenons to my Cooper and called an MINI dealer parts dept, only to find that the xenon light assy costs $580, the electronic module $325, for a total of something around $2000USD for the pair. That option is not viable for my budget, so I will be sticking with just the regular Halogen lights.

[snoopy]

Quote:

Originally posted by Basil


OK, can someone in the know confirm whether this is simply a case of a "cock-up" or whether there are two different Xenon options, perhaps for different markets.

The reason I ask, is because If i'm paying $1100AU for a "low beam" HID bulb only, I'm going to be one ****ed-off customer. And if the ozzie market gets "dipped" only xenons, I'll try and cancel them.

Thanks

Basil on the Xenon that i have seen on a Oz spec MINI. You do only get the low beam HID bulb then a H7 were the high beam bulb goes.

Sorry but still think it is worth the money. As karmuze found out it is very costly to reto fit them.

[snoopy]

picture time. hope this works

[Basil]

Quote:

Originally posted by karmuze
Basil: The xenon option on the MINI uses HID for low beam (dipped beam)--the high beam (main beam) is identical to the standard headlamps--an H7 halogen bulb. However, the xenon bulb stays lit for the main beam light as well, so you get the advantage of xenon on both beams.

I was trying to determine if I could retrofit Xenons to my Cooper and called an MINI dealer parts dept, only to find that the xenon light assy costs $580, the electronic module $325, for a total of something around $2000USD for the pair. That option is not viable for my budget, so I will be sticking with just the regular Halogen lights.

Thanks Karmuze & Snoopy.

I just got a call from my dealer in reply to my e-mail (Lewis is always so helpful) and he confirms (after a bit of checking) that the Low Beam HID stays lit when High Beam (Halogen) is flicked on. He has just come back from his dealer day(s) with the Cooper S and reckons the Xenon's are well worth the extra money.

Basil's happy again..........

[HarryHBMCC]

Hmm, I don't have the washer system on mine but both low and high beams stay on when I turn my highbeams on. Does this mean that all MINIs do this, regardless of what type of low beam it has, or do I have some strange car that has xenon bulb but no washer??? What colour are the xenon low beams?

Harry

[noahe]

Quote:

Originally posted by HarryIndiBlue
Hmm, I don't have the washer system on mine but both low and high beams stay on when I turn my highbeams on. Does this mean that all MINIs do this, regardless of what type of low beam it has, or do I have some strange car that has xenon bulb but no washer??? What colour are the xenon low beams?

As your car is a launch edition, yours does not have HID Xenon bulbs. The washer thing only comes with the Xenon lights. They look like that sort of pure-white, almost purple-blue at times. M-B, BMW, Porsche, Lexus, Infinity, Acura, etc... usually have them. You'd know in a second if you had them.

General consensus is, great for the driver, and everyone else will hate you for them.

It is neat that the low beam bulb stays on when you hit the high beams though. I haven't seen many cars that do that.

[moonshine]

in Europe, if you have a HID dipped beam (i.e Xenon Gas discharge)then you must have auto levelling and washers due to the agressive beam scatter from the HID lamps.

if your lights dont have the self levellers and the washers, i suspect that chances are you have regular Xenon bulbs as opposed to true Xenon HID lights, tho i stand to be corrected.

There is a lot of so called "xenon" aftermarket bulbs available, but these use standard light bulb technology and these just retrofit into a regular light fitting, but these may only give approx 10 % increaced light output over standard.

HID lamps AKA as xenon lamps in mini speak use technology like street lights and have no filament and rely on the gas responding to a current and glowing. These can give between 50 - 100% increaced light output compared with standard, However they will not retrofit into standard lighs easily coz they require a "ballast" that ramps up the voltages necessary to ignite the gas. Plus HID lamps require 2-3 seconds to warm up in a similar fashion to street lights.

As for the low and high beams remaining on together, i don't think it is too special, rather it depends on what type of bulb setup you have (and this goes for regular filament lights too.

in the UK, we have 3 main types of bulbs for headlights,

H1 - single filament
H4 - dual filament , one is shielded for low beam tho
H7 - single filament

if the car has either 2 H1, 2 H7 (like the mini, or one H1 & 1H7 (like my old 1997 vauxhall vectra) then both bulbs would stay lit on high beam,

however an h4 setup like my bike requiers that the low beam filament is turned off as the highbeam (unshielded) provides the illumination.
the shielding of the low beam ensures that only a certain area of the reflector is used to provide the directed illumination. Hi beam gets it all!

I also thought that washers were available as an option with standard lights, but came as an integral part of the HID set up

hope this is of help

Gerry

[HarryHBMCC]

Mine definitely aren't blue like many I see but the low beams appear to be a different colour than the hi beams -- the lows appear whiter, the highs appear yellower. Also, I can see the bulb in the high beams but I can't see a bulb in the low beam assembly.

Harry

[Basil]

Quote:

Originally posted by noahe

As your car is a launch edition, yours does not have HID Xenon bulbs. The washer thing only comes with the Xenon lights. They look like that sort of pure-white, almost purple-blue at times. M-B, BMW, Porsche, Lexus, Infinity, Acura, etc... usually have them. You'd know in a second if you had them.

General consensus is, great for the driver, and everyone else will hate you for them.

It is neat that the low beam bulb stays on when you hit the high beams though. I haven't seen many cars that do that.

Hmmm. Oz spec MINI's can have the washer system as an extra to the standard Halogen headlights.

[noahe]

Quote:

Originally posted by Basil


Hmmm. Oz spec MINI's can have the washer system as an extra to the standard Halogen headlights.

Neat. Sounds like anything is possible, depending on where it's sold. Hat's off to Australia... You do seem to get the most unique configurations.