Hi all,
I recently made the switch from my crappy halogen headlights (so ineffective I would have been better off driving with a headlamp on my head) to leds. I bought the entire new sealed beam from Headlight Experts (which after reading reviews I have deemed to be my first mistake). Anyway, now I have them so whatever, and after installing they are indeed much much brighter than the original headlights. That being said, there appears to be some interesting side affects from the switch. First off, my high beams no longer work. My high beam light on my dash is halfway lit, literally just dimly illuminated, which is rather perplexing and a bit annoying. Additionally, when I turn my headlights off, and then turn my car off, the headlights turn back on! I have to turn the car back on (not the engine though) and then off again to get the lights to turn off for good. What in the heck is going on?
one other perplexing issue is that when I turn my car off and leave my headlights on my normal beams stay on as they should, but when I push in the headlights to turn them off, the high beams go on! And that’s literally the only way I can get the highs to work at all!

 

I've read so many posts like this, here & elsewhere, that I have known for a couple of years now to stick with good halogen lamps. I know that's not what you want to "hear" but I've never seen a definitive answer to this sort of problem. What I do find interesting is that the U-tubers whose opinions I trust have nearly all converted their XJ's to LED's - & none of them have reported any issues.

 

could be a faulty switch? Cheap and easy enough to replace. These are known to melt a little over time.

 

Could be (they run Citroens a close 2nd in not being able to handle amperage) but is it just coincidence that it failed when the LED's were fitted? Can a switch reach a point that it will just about work with halogen lights but not with LED's? I have a feeling that LED's may be more sensitive to poor connections.

I'd still favour starting with the lamps themselves & working back.

 

If you add in the head light relay kit it should fix your problem .The head light module doesn't like LED lights but it does work with a relay kit .

 

Ah, now that might just explain the random "variations on a theme" issues that some (many?) have experienced.

 

That’s a good point. I remember I replaced the harness with the H4 harness & did the halogen upgrade at first & wasn’t impressed. Then I swapped the headlights to some LED’s & finally got it where I liked it. MAJOR upgrade. I’ll have to look to see if we hooked up a relay in there somewhere. Always a chance it’s the headlight itself also.