Philips Ultinon Pro9000 LED Bulbs - 996 projectors

[Teffers]

Having been all inspired by some of you upgrading projectors etc with retrofitlabs kits - but being inherently lazy - I've been casually interested in how some of these retrofit LED bulbs have developed.

I have halogen projectors already in my 996.2 C4S.

Philips brought out their Ultinon Pro9000 led bulbs in various flavours last year and I decided to commit to the £135 purchase price. Out of lockdown boredom.

The most attractive feature (or lack of) was the driverless design which, I figured, would mean no issues getting everything inside the light assembly itself thus maintaining the integrity of the rear cover.

When the bulbs were delivered I realised the design was refined to the point the bulb holders needed less modification than with previous versions and also the upgraded design of the collar now meant the bulb could only be inserted in the correct orientation.

I figured I'd modify another pair of bulb holders and keep the stock ones so if I had an LED go down while I was away from home I could easily revert back to a stock halogen.

Pictures below
Bulbs
Minor mod pictured. Before and after.
Holder slides down to base and retaining collar holds it firm.
Neat installation.
Colour temp - Osram Night breaker on the left.
Tight beam control of original projectors maintained - good.

Verdict?

Minimal faffing.
Updated 'look' if that kind of thing means anything to you.
Low power draw must be some kind of benefit.
Longevity compared to halogen.
Keeps the whole light assembly virtually stock.

I'm not sure they're actually 'better' at illuminating the road ahead than a good halogen.
Will probably change the H9 high beans over too at some point.

What do you reckon?

 

[Teffers]

Put the old bird away and jumped into our 2012 Mini with HID's and was instantly amazed at just how much of a broad, consistent spread of light it threw out.

I guess the most effective mod for our old cars would be to replace the projector inside the lights with a more modern design and possibly use a modern HID kit.

I really wanted to keep the light units intact though - can you get HID kits that preserve the 996's party piece of being about to slide out the whole unit completely? i.e no external ballasts taped into the inner wing to disconnect etc?

 

[richardh1]

I'm impressed when I put retrofitted HIDS in my mk 3 golf iIbought the bixenon units and ballasts and so on quite a lot of Faff mind you brilliant results
the cut off is really sharp and penetration is great considering that is just a bulb in a halogen unit that way outclasses the standard bodge HID bulb in a halogen unit
mind you was told the MOT testers are getting really arsey about these will find out soon
amazing how small the heatsinks are neat bit of kit,be intersting to see how long it lasts but being Phillips like osram it should go the distance

 

[Luddite]

Apparently from the 1st Jan this year it is an MOT fail for a vehicle not originally fitted with LED headlights to have them fitted..?


https://www.autobulbsdirect.co.uk/blog/are-led-headlights-legal-in-the-uk/

 

[Teffers]

It'll be interesting to see how stringent a tester will be, especially when observing a set of stock projectors throwing a perfect beam pattern.

I'll report back!

 

[AntonyC]

I fitted these during the summer, there are much better than cheaper LED and a good consistent light spread (you dont dazzle oncoming drivers).

Philips have put in a lot of R&D into these bulbs, i highly recommend.

I had my MOT in Feb and there were no issues, you cant see the bulb in the headlight on my 996.1.