Replaced them with some Depo lights from RockAuto. Plug and play again, and WHAM! Beam pattern? Lovely. Clarity? Perfect. Leveling? Works, but not even needed. They were good out of box.
Mine are going on 5 years probably and holding up great! I highly recommend retrofitting a xenon or led bulb in there (I left the high beams halogen). Much brighter and the color of the light is much more modern.
Assuming you have an early model with the sealed beams, they are a great upgrade. If you are replacing OEM ellipsoids on a later model, there is a drop in quality. Still, they cost 1/3 of the price of new OEMs these days. Those same DEPO headlights are sold by a dozen different resellers so you could probably find them slightly cheaper.
Ive seen people talk about issues with the seals and water getting in them, but I’ve had three sets on different cars and it was never a problem. After a couple years the set I’m using now had an issue with one of the wires going into the bulb socket but it wasn’t hard to rewire it. You do need to use a little care when aiming them because the adjusting mechanism is a bit flimsy, but manageable.
They are the most commonly used replacement headlights for E30s. They aren’t quite OEM quality, but they work just fine. If you have functioning OEM ellipsoids and are looking to upgrade, this is not that. If you have the old sealed beam headlights the difference is night and day.
I got mine about 6 months ago, and I love them.
I strongly recommend resealing them. I didn’t have issues with mine initially, but decided to go ahead and do it, considering how hard they have been to find.
I’ve had plastic OE headlights, ZKWs, DJ Autos, and DEPOs in my E36. My favorite setup is my current headlights. They’re DEPO Gen 4 that I opened up and retrofitted some Morimoto FXR 3.0 projectors in. If you’re handy with DIY work this is well worth it. The light output is incredible. Driving on the freeway at night, I light up the road in front of me considerably better than most 2020 and newer vehicles.
I have DEPO headlights. They look pretty much OE, but I won't necessarily recommend them. The fitting of the bulbs is cheap and not so reliable. Plus, if high beam goes out, you need to get the bumper out.
Quality was really good for the HID part, the high beam H7 reflector has a really weird upward angle that i have found really hard to correct thru the adjustment screw.
I tried some Depo/Helix halogen projector headlights for my wife's 2.5 Jetta some years ago. The optics were terrible.
depo doesn’t seal them as well as they should.
I bought an 06 depo replacement headlight awhile back and I returned it immediately. The seals looked fine but I was intending on resealing them anyways since these depos tend to fog up quite a bit and rather quickly too. Every Z I’ve seen locally here with the blacked housing depos have always had moisture in their headlights and clearcoat fading. But anyways, the headlight i received had finger prints and smudges on all the chrome bits inside the housing and something was either broken or rattling every time I would pick it up. The bulb sockets for the turn signal and city light were stripped so the plugs couldn’t really lock into place. Just felt really cheap overall.
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