I have been looking at the wiring diagrams of the halogen and Xenon and comparing them because both look very similar. When I look carefully it turned out to be basically same except the auto levelling part of the xenon light, so bought a pair of Xenon headlights from ebay for £340.
Once I got them I compared the physical connector and again found that its same so after powering each line separately with the car, finally I connected the xenon unit to the wiring plug.
First I turned the head lights on using the keyfob and xenons came ok. Then I turned the ignition on and then checked the high and low beam, both worked on the (bi)xenon and also headlight levelling using the manual control worked fine. At this point I thought this can’t be this easy. When I started the engine and few seconds later xenons started flickering.
So far I managed to workout few points.
1. If I feed the power directly to the xenons from the battery then no problem even when the engine running.
2. I used a parallel 20W bulb with the xenon to see if the problem is due to xenon being 35w compared to 55w but didn’t work.
3. When fed via the low beam wiring I have seen higher voltage then when I seen on the battery so looks like it’s a regulation or overvoltage issue.
4. Low beam wiring on both xenon and halogen is activated via same transistor (BTS 443)in the main junction box so looks like software playing a part.

I am still at the very early stages of finding a solution to this and will keep on working as time permits. Has anyone done xenon conversions and had issues with flicking and any solutions?

Also could someone with factory fitted xenon check these please,
1. Do they starts very blue (like 6000k xenon first )and then within few seconds turn white.
2. Does the xenons emit a low humming sound? Freelander 2 TD4 HSE Auto
Zermatt Silver
Side Steps & Mud flaps

I have read that xenon need some sort of software switching on in the cars setup

basically does the have xenons yes/no

Unfortunately I have a little wait till my new car with xenons  Former Mod/Member, with the most post & Chicken George Arch nemesis

this flickering has been reported before, sadly no cure has ever been mentioned . Someone said it was to do with the bulb monitoring circuitry but who knows??? At work
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"I can't always believe facts I read on the web" - Charles Dickens

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npinks wrote:

I have read that xenon need some sort of software switching on in the cars setup

basically does the have xenons yes/no

Unfortunately I have a little wait till my new car with xenons

Like the new signature NP  Stornoway Grey GS ... What a fine motor ... but not any more ... ... psst look at my gallery!
Company cars ... a thing of the past - May 2013.

through a computer program that must service the car has headlights xeon and should be ok

As for the "hum" is minimal but how to determine how big?

and so the margin is not thinking about mounting sensors on auto leveling headlights? _________________________
2007 Freelander 2 TD4 S auto Sumatra black, 18" 12 spoke HSE alloys, 6 CD Changer, wood effect fascia kit , spoiler , sport grille ,tungsten handles , bluetooth kit, clear side repeaters,front and rear lamp guards, bumper styling cover, roof rails - SOLD !

Ballasts used in the xenon are Philips XLD 145, and that works between 9 to 16 volts, so I am planing to use the low beam wire to activate a relay (and a resistor to simulate a bulb) and then use power feed from the battery power the xenon via the relay. I can do all the modifications within the xenon light unit(dont have to do any changes to the wiring loon of the car) so whenever i want will be able to swap back to the halogen unit.
Only thing i dont know is how bigger the wattage of the resister needs to be to stop ECU to think that the low beam bulb has blown out and logging events to the error log. Hopefully dont have to waste 50w for each just to fool the system.Will let you know how this goes.


Bartosz, hum is very low, can't hear when engine is running and actually its quiter then the humming noise made by the engine before starting and after turing off.

When I bough the car I wanted a adaptive one but could not find any from the new staock so option was waiting for 6 weeks or getting a one without xenon day later so went for the second option. Maybe should have waited like npinks.  Freelander 2 TD4 HSE Auto
Zermatt Silver
Side Steps & Mud flaps

You don't need to put any aditional resistor for blown bulb checking.
The current sensing / open circuit of the BTS443 is not used in this application (FL2 circuits).

As for your questions, yes on both: bluish first then white and a very low humming sound.

For the flickering issue, you know, when the bulbs are old, this (flickering) is one of the common symptoms.
If it's not the case, probably the balasts are leaking high frequency harmonics into their inputs - that higher voltage you've measured.
My oppinion is that the balasts (and their switching electronics) are influencing the BTS443 from CJB and the BTS443 is cutting the supply for reverse current protection.

Are you sure that the balasts/headlamp assemblies are reliable? Maybe they have some problems and the guy just wanted to get rid of them.
Find a friend with OEM xenon headlamps and make a test with his lamps on your car to see if the problem persists.

Udash wrote:

When I bough the car I wanted a adaptive one but could not find any from the new staock so option was waiting for 6 weeks or getting a one without xenon day later so went for the second option. Maybe should have waited like npinks.

I order a car like this I can also present either with a manual transmission and the other would have to wait about 20 weeks
And I wanted to petrol, white, automatic, xenon, sunroof, tinted rear windows ... and not to wait for

are days that I regret not having waited but still it gives me much joy  _________________________
2007 Freelander 2 TD4 S auto Sumatra black, 18" 12 spoke HSE alloys, 6 CD Changer, wood effect fascia kit , spoiler , sport grille ,tungsten handles , bluetooth kit, clear side repeaters,front and rear lamp guards, bumper styling cover, roof rails - SOLD !

Thanks for confirming that the BTS443 don’t actually sense the current and open circuit. I just finished off the wiring as i mentioned in my second post and everting works fine now. Drove for 30 mins and no problem. The units I bought are new ones, didn’t come in the original boxes but certainly haven’t been fitted before.

for testing on one side I used 12 relay and 6w resister to add bit more load on to the low beam circuit and on the other side I just connected the relay and both sides works without a problem so looks like I don’t need to use any resistors, low beam circuit only drives the relays.
Just waiting for some good automotive connectors to be delivered, once I have this I will be able to remove the units out just like a standard unit except for extra connector to unplug.

As for auto levelling I don’t have it but at least have the manual control. According to workshop manual even the automatic levelling is not dynamic and only provides 'static periodic adjustments'
I will take some photos of what i did inside the xenon and post later.
Thanks for all the comments and help.

alex_pescaru wrote:

You don't need to put any aditional resistor for blown bulb checking.
The current sensing / open circuit of the BTS443 is not used in this application (FL2 circuits).

As for your questions, yes on both: bluish first then white and a very low humming sound.

For the flickering issue, you know, when the bulbs are old, this (flickering) is one of the common symptoms.
If it's not the case, probably the balasts are leaking high frequency harmonics into their inputs - that higher voltage you've measured.
My oppinion is that the balasts (and their switching electronics) are influencing the BTS443 from CJB and the BTS443 is cutting the supply for reverse current protection.

Are you sure that the balasts/headlamp assemblies are reliable? Maybe they have some problems and the guy just wanted to get rid of them.
Find a friend with OEM xenon headlamps and make a test with his lamps on your car to see if the problem persists.

Udash,

Good to hear you got them working, congrats... although i have to admit i understood practically nothing of what you've had to do to get them working

Look forward to seeing the pictures, as it's something I've been interested in adding for some time now (I regret not adding xenon's to the original spec of the car, but could not justify the additional cost at the time... )

Stevea 2008 SE, HSE wheels, Black Premium Leather, Privacy Glass, Sports Kit, Side Steps, various LED upgrades and Clear side indicators.

This is what you need to do,
You will need two relays, I got 12v 30AMP automotive ones from maplin
Two silicon diodes 1A 1N4007S, two inline fuse holders, two automotive single connectors and wires in two sizes, I got 17 amp and 3 amp but even 1 amp will do.

First open the cover of the xenon light unit and identify the red and black wires that goes to the xenon ballast. Cut the Red wire between the connector and the ferrite coil and on the black wire remove the insulation so that we can solder a wire.

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Hi Udash, hi to all others!

i read posts for replacing the halogens very carefully and have done every step Udash mentioned. When I put the genuine Xenons into my non-Xenon Freel2, flickering starts after about a minute.
I think it is because of the power, something is not working.

please .. have you any idea ?

I know this is an old post - but it has been invaluable to me. I am moving to France shortly, and have the problem with the lights needing to be changed to LHD. I purchased a pair of full xenon LHD units from ebay for my 2008 Freelander 2, replaced the oem halogen units, and had the flickering described - pity I didn't search the forum before bought them.

I then found Udash's remedy, carried out the mods and low & behold the lights work perfectly.

Thank you Udash.

However - one question. The lights have the lever inside to change between LHD- RHD, no problem, it's easy to find, but every piece of info I can find regarding the position for each simply says - move to other position to change. I can't find anywhere which is the correct position for each. This is made worse by seeing on the VW forum (don't ask) that for their lights, it's up for the left lens and down for the right lens for Continental driving.

Does anyone know the relevant setting for LHD? Pointing the car at a wall doesn't seem to show any difference but I'm sure the French MOT equivalent equipment might be a little more precise.[/b]

Udash wrote:

As for auto levelling I don’t have it but at least have the manual control. According to workshop manual even the automatic levelling is not dynamic and only provides 'static periodic adjustments'
I will take some photos of what i did inside the xenon and post later.
Thanks for all the comments and help.

If a self levelling system is fitted it must work, but if you as cannot test the self levelling as it is not fitted, you have the benefit of doubt. There does not have to be an actual levelling device fitted on the Headlights, the Discovery 4 for one has no device fitted, levelling I'd sone by the suspension.

http://www.motinfo.gov.uk/htdocs/m4s01000701.htm