[glhx]

You hope they are bosch because bosch don't burn the reflective coating off the projector bowls
Zkw burns the silver coating off the bowls and they don't reflect anymore......your new light bulbs won't reflect because the mirror shine to reflect from is gone. Then your forced into retrofitting your lights or getting the bowls re coated.....either is a pain to deal with.

Bi xenon have a split across the middle of the lens for the bosch al brand. The projector bezel is also 3"
Zkw bixenon have no line across the lense.....still 3" and .....like the bosch.....have notches all the way around the bezel. Look at my picture of the headlight taken apart. Look at the bezel shroud. It's different than yours. The bi xenon started in 2002

Single ran from 99-2001. Halogen was used for brights. This is what you have

...meaning you have the single xenon projector lighting assembly
I have the bixenon.....my brights and dims both come from the projector.....my halogens are not used.


What's confusing me is that I thought all early e46 used zkw....but yours says bosch al
I think in 99 they used bosch and 2000 and 2001 it was zkw.

Your car has no year next to the description. Is it a 99? All this is coming from memory of research I did 2 months ago.

 

[glhx]

1. You need to know for sure which brand of light you have

If you have zkw.....you need to know if the bowls are burned up and coating is gone
First find that out.

If they are bosch and the bowls are not burned.....
...........clean you headlight lens......polish plastic cover......replace bulbs with $185 osram2

You probanly don't need retrofit projectors but you won't know until you know what brand and if they are burned or not.

Google search zkw burned projector.....look at images. When my lights said bosch al I took a sigh of relief.

 

[peytonracer4]

As far as I know, zkw wasn't used until after 2001 when they went to a 3" bixenon.

 

[bmwdude21]

My car is a 2000. So I'm really just going to have to open up the headlight to see if they are Bosch and if the bowls are not burned then just clean it. If they are zkw and the bowls are burned up and coating is gone, get http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/230535888879

 

[glhx]

Don't get any lighting stuff from ebay. Go with one of our vendors

 

[bmwdude21]

Would any of these work? http://www.theretrofitsource.com/components/projectors.html?proj_functionality=164

 

[dwtaylorpdx]

My 2005 has Bi-xenon, and still has the halogen "high" beam
but its only gets used when you pull the dipper beam on the signal lever.

Eventually if this is a big deal to you your just going to have to take it apart and figure it out..
You wont really know what kind of shape the assemblies are in till you can see through them.
I would not start buying parts till I had the units apart and knew exactly what I was dealing with.

 

[glhx]

He's right. You really need to figure out what you have.

I'm thinking you need bulbs......and that's it

So.....let's say you have zkw......and let's say you have burned bulbs.
Then your looking at something like this
http://www.theretrofitsource.com/co...tem-bmw-e46-zkw-lights-only.html#.VE2G4N08KK0
And making sure the diameter is correct. These are 3" bi xenon.
This is what I would do if I found I have zkw on my own car. I also do have the 3" bi xenon.

You would need a kit like this one for 2.5 single xenon.......and all this is.......if the bowls are zkw and if the bowls are burned to non reflection status.

Either way.....your replacing the bulbs. So you might as well figure out which kelvin rating you want

You also should read and study this thread.
http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=804583

I'm also seeing conflicting information. The fort time I saw that zkw was 99-01.
I then saw bosch was 99 to 2000 and zkw was 2001
Then I saw on the coupe that al of them are bosch
Then later I read it was a toss up and on the sedan....zkw and bosch was a crap shoot

My belief is.
Coupe.....all bosch
Sedan......bosch was 99-00...............zkw was 2001 only. I would like to confirm this.

 

[umnitza]

You should figure out what parts you have first. You can do this by simply looking at the top of the headlight and seeing if there is a sticker on top.
As long as you have a MY 2000 car, you probably have AL/BOSCH lights but you really should check first. Often, you can even identify it by the lenses - if they are in poor enough condition that means they are likely to be the original lenses on the car.

If you have a MY2000 car, you do not have bixenon, it wasn't offered then. You have a single xenon car. This is actually good news for you because you CAN retrofit your lights to a better quality projector and gain bixenon.

In most cases, you will need a higher end projector other than the H1 mini, something like an EVO-X, FXR V3, RX350 (if you want to fit it) or other.

We offer all of those at very good prices:
RX350 - http://www.umnitza.com/umnitza-bixenon-rx350-projector-retrofit-p-6501.html

FXR - http://www.umnitza.com/umnitza-bixenon-fxr-30-projector-retrofit-p-6149.html

These are our new favorites
Hella EVO-X - http://www.umnitza.com/umnitza-bixenon-hella-evo-x-e55-projector-p-6028.html

 

[bmwdude21]

Yes I'm not going to buy anything until I have it apart. So I got the CBI bulbs in and when I first turned them on they were like a cool blue color and then they turned to this https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zws379gmz428l2r/AAB8UORzOnaJKFDwe87oBAAMa?dl=0 in like 30 seconds. It does it if I don't have them on for a long time and then if I turn them back on it happens again. Has this happened to anyone?

 

[bmwdude21]

He's right. You really need to figure out what you have.

I'm thinking you need bulbs......and that's it

So.....let's say you have zkw......and let's say you have burned bulbs.
Then your looking at something like this
http://www.theretrofitsource.com/co...tem-bmw-e46-zkw-lights-only.html#.VE2G4N08KK0
And making sure the diameter is correct. These are 3" bi xenon.
This is what I would do if I found I have zkw on my own car. I also do have the 3" bi xenon.

You would need a kit like this one for 2.5 single xenon.......and all this is.......if the bowls are zkw and if the bowls are burned to non reflection status.

Either way.....your replacing the bulbs. So you might as well figure out which kelvin rating you want

You also should read and study this thread.
http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=804583

I'm also seeing conflicting information. The fort time I saw that zkw was 99-01.
I then saw bosch was 99 to 2000 and zkw was 2001
Then I saw on the coupe that al of them are bosch
Then later I read it was a toss up and on the sedan....zkw and bosch was a crap shoot

My belief is.
Coupe.....all bosch
Sedan......bosch was 99-00...............zkw was 2001 only. I would like to confirm this.

what do you mean by "Either way.....your replacing the bulbs. So you might as well figure out which kelvin rating you want" I went with the CBI

 

[glhx]

I meant.....your bulbs were basically junk and either way (no matter what you do) you needed bulbs.

Figuring out which kelvins rating you want depends on what color light you want.
Kelvin rating is k rating. It represents warm and cool.
Warm being yellow
Cool being white with a blue tint to it.

The higher you go in the k rating the more white the light becomes.
A 6000k light is going to be bluish white
A 4300k rating is going to be a more traditional warm yellow

You got the cbi which are in the 5000 range.....these will be more white color. You will not be disappointed in these bulbs. They make the halogens look dim.

 

[bmwdude21]

Ok. I don't get much of a difference between the cbi and the old builds just the color, so I'm thinking the next step is to see what's burnt. I looked into this thread http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=804583 and like what I see. I would like to do that and put in bixenons in. Or is that really not necessary?