Just out of interest is this just a straight replacement and if so what do the parts cost please ?
Yes - it is a straight forward swap over, Although you will need new gaskets, headlight, driving light & indicator units, and bulbs of course. I have no idea of costs, talk to Ferrari UK. Seb
Would it be possible to swap 550 lights on 575. I love the front diffuser on the 575, but I really do not like the lights, I think the new lights detract from the overall lines of the car. John
John: maybe you and Richard should switch? Richard - if you want HID lights, you can do a conversion by adding a ballast to your current setup (find an H7 HID upgrade) - it is extremely cheap by comparison to purchasing a new 575 headlight assembly. --Dan
Dan...can you please provide more details/specs on this? I would be very interested in a cost effective way of upgrading the 550 to HID lights....I find the stock ones a little too dim for my liking.....
Steve - I too find them lacking, but never bothered to follow up. I'll ask the gentleman who suggested it to me (apparently this is an easy/common thing to do) and get back to you with details. --Dan
If I may, I have a bit of HID retrofit knowledge. There are kits that will allow HID bulbs to be retofitted into halogen lamps, either reflector or projector style. All you really need to know is the bulb type, apparently H7 in this case. HOWEVER, if the optics of the lamp were designed for halogen, then it will not be optimal for HID. While projector lamps are better than reflector style lights, it is still not going to be OEM equivelant. Some projector lamps are better than others, but none will be as good as projectors designed for HID. Another option would be to retrofit the projector/HID bulb/ballast set up from either an OEM application, or from an aftermarket 3rd party supplier. The OEM option involves sourcing lamps from another car, Merc E55 bi-xenon reflectors are a popular choice. For the aftermaket option, I'd suggest www.hidtech.com . They can retrofit bi-xenon projectors into basically any set of headlights. I have NO affiliation or experience with them, so take this with a grain of salt, but judging by the info on their site, they use top quality parts and the quality of their fabrication appears to be excellent. My guess would be that in the 550's case they would remove the OEM projector and replace it with one of theirs, which would lead to little or no change to the appearance of the headlight itself. This second option is much more invasive than the conversion bulbs, but if the goal is the best possible light output, it's worth it. If all you want is the *bling* of pretty blue headlights, OR you want to avoid too much customizing of a Ferrari (very understandable) then option #1 would be better. I hope this helps.
Im very curious as well about going FROM a 575 to a 550 headlight, the 575 colored in HL's look awful imo, but the 575 GTC is awfully nice as a car. I also prefer the 550 front bumper; can this be done?
Thank you Jason for the info and Dan for the follow-up. I do like the "look" of HID's , but wouldnt bother with the change just for cosmetics...I was mostly interested in the brightness factor. Look forward to hearing more input...has anyone made the "leap" to either of the systems that Jason mentioned?...any others? Thx again
