From what I have found the Hi and Low beam bulbs are H7 and H9, and the fog lights are H8.
Do they have any of the issue with flickering or throwing error codes like MBs and other German cars?
Has anyone successfully changed these to
LEDs
?
Brand or model recommendations?
I have, but due to an NHTSA recall, the manufacturer no longer sells the ones I used. There isn't any big improvement over the stock bulbs. If you're looking for a whiter color they're probably the answer you're seeking. If you actually want to be able to see at night - you'd be better off with higher output halogen bulbs, or even standard new halogens.
Bulbs do age and put out less light as they age. You can easily lose 25-50% of the output from when they're new after a few years of use. New identical bulbs will be brighter, but of course, they also start to age as soon as you start using them.
The
LED
inserts that have cooling fans attached generally (not an absolute..) won't throw bulb-out codes since the fan assembly provides the conductivity that fools the bulb monitoring circuit into believing the "filament" of the halogen bulb (that it expects to see) is there and intact.
LEDs
with passive cooling possibly may throw an error code.
There is a basic mismatch between the
LED
package and the halogen package the lights were designed to use. Some
LEDs
help address this by making the actual
LED
assembly rotatable, so you can turn it for the best match to the reflector... and some don't.
I don't necessarily recommend this swap - I see no better lighting with my
LED
conversions, and I'm generally a function over form sort of person. I'd love for the factory
LED lights
to be retrofittable, and affordable, but neither of those things is going to happen. Perhaps the aftermarket will come to the rescue. There have been some
LED
replacement headlight assemblies made for other
Porsche
models (the early
Cayenne
for instance..) but prices were still rather high.
Good luck, let us know what'cha do.
Based on my reading in the past, the Hikari brand
LEDs
(with fans) seemed to work well for most people. But like Don said, they're not necessarily better than halogens.
I honestly don't find the stock halogens to be bad... I did have to adjust them when I first got the car, because they were set WAY low... once set back up they seem pretty decent. And I didn't even replace bulbs yet. I have had Sylvania "Silverstar" bulbs in the past on cars, and those were fine and lasted a decent amount of time as well (some "brighter" bulbs have terrible life... which I didn't want to deal with).
There can be a lot of different between
LEDs
, Evan those of the same color can have differing Color Rendering Index (CRI), and some try to target the same light as normal or "High Brightness". halogens.
I was concerned more about heat, as that is what kills the reflector and wiring. ( I just had to completely rebuild some Touareg
headlights
due to the wires loosing their insulation.
I was also concerned the fan cooled
LEDs
might not fit, but that sounds like it is not a problem.
Unfortunately Auto
LED headlights
, like too many auto accessories have more hype than information in the adds.
I have been looking for a decent
LED
kit with about 200% of normal lumens, that is 5000k or lower.
My guess is it will be about 50% of normal halogen power and heat.
Those are what I have - and what was recalled by NHTSA. The recall from Hikari was I would send them the LED inserts at my expense, and they'd compensate me for 2 H7 halogen bulbs when they got around to it. Somehow that wasn't really appealing. I pressed them for a full refund and shipping, but they refused claiming the recall only required them to supply bulbs conforming to NHTSA standards.
I don't recommend Hikari bulbs.
