Retro fit Litronic

As per the 996 Halogen headlights, mine are poor. Living in deepest darkest Lincolnshire it's one thing that really lets the car down for me. I have had HIDs in the past and I'm not a fan. Or I have not been a fan of the kits I have had. So I keep looking at buy a set of Litronics. My question is 1: are they worth the money? 2:What do I need to buy fit them? Thanks in advance.

They're not worth the £700 you sometimes see. I bought a pair for £300 with badly yellowed lenses, sanded them back myself and now they look great and for that sort of money they're a great buy. You've got to be a bit patient and wait for the right ones to crop up. Post sanding but pre clearcoat: After clearcoat: Fitting is simple - just plug and play. Be aware you need to swap out the washer corner trim triangles for non-washer ones.

If you fit litronics I thought you had to also fit the levelling system to pass an MOT. :dont know: If you key the word litronic into the Search Forum function (top right of screen) and key the author GT4 you will get a long list of threads discussing the subject.

Surely you can buy a newer/better set of bulbs, I can't say that the litronics on my car are stunning, in fact on the Boxster they're pretty rubbish. Isn't there something to do with the washer system as well, or is that on another make of car?

Wow if I'd had found a set for £300 I'd of had them years ago! The cheapest I can find is as you say at the £700 mark. Where did you buy them from?

I'm not sure. Some people say they are a straight fit. Some say you need to buy a wiring harnesses like this. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254413007668 Thanks I had a search earlier but couldn't find the info I wanted after a good read through them.

I have never had more than a marginal improvement when swapping to better bulbs. I might try it again but won't know until the nights get darker. I have read that you can improve the bulbs in the litronics though. I came across that when I did a search earlier 👍

On Wheeler Dealers, Mr China did a demo of cheap eBay bulbs and high quality expensive bulbs and he showed the difference in light spread and colour rendering etc, the difference was very noticeable.

Hi I think with the litronics you just fit HID bulbs et al. With my 993 I just fitted Torre's HID's into the standard projectors. I have bought a set of universal HID housings off of ebay and will be retrofitting them to my existing 986 lights as per the many tutorials on the internet. Considerably more work, but should be fun. Berni

Picked them up on ebay, just lucked out one day. They do pop up from time to time. I actually managed to sell my clear headlights for the same money I bought the litronics for which made me very happy. The ones up there for £700 never seem to sell, the ones that actually move are much cheaper I found. I can confirm they are fit and forget, just plug straight in on a 996.1 anyway. Light output is vastly better than the halogens, even with high output bulbs the halogens are just ***** imo. My previous m3 had really great xenons and I really missed them and the litronics are not as good as the m3 but they're a hell of a lot better than the halogens. Xenon bulb output does drop over time and mine are oe ones as far as I can see so I might get some new ones at some point to bump up the light output in time for winter. WRT the mot I understand that washers and self levelling must work if fitted. The boxster does not have self levelling even with the oe fitment. Hence my suggestion to change the corner trims otherwise you could have an issue.

I have litronics on my 996. Would consider doing a deal for a set of standard lights plush cash. I never drive the car at night so don't really care for the fact it has litronics. Pm me if interested. Photo of the lights:

Mine are a as clear as a bell (30K miles) but the first thing I did was to fit stone guard film to prevent peppering of the lenses by road grime. For $50 the film is pre-cut and dead easy to install.

in my opinion i have had both, the litronics are better but only just! I bought some M tech (similar to PIAA)bulbs for my halogens and they were better than standard, worth a shot for £12 or so. They projector lights look better in my opinion, you got to remember that these cars are 20yrs old and lighting has moved on massively. I think the retrofit HID's need to have self levelling to pass an MOT, the luxury we have is our lights are easy to remove & refit. so you can make a nice job of fitting a kit. The majority of aftermarket kits are poorly fitted & cheap causing issues and regulation needing to change to combat this.

Litronics for facelift cars are less common and tend to be more expensive. I think the wiring change is for the Bi-Zenon function, with this, the main beam function lights the main beam bulb and also triggers the dip beam to lower the dip beam mask and give more light output. From what I've seen, one of the biggest issues with reflector lights is that the reflector corrodes and dulls with time, not sure of this can really be repaired in a cost effective way. One of the Bi-Zenon lights I bought was afflicted and it gave much less output than the other. I've just bought some cheap, Chinese, Ebay projectors, they are a different size but I'm sure I can get them to fit along the lines of Wouter's parts.

speaking of which...