Trups Quad Xenon Headlight upgrade - My Review
Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2016 8:42 pm
The first time I’d seen a set of Trups headlights was when I met classba before a Boxhill meet. As he pulled into the services I didn’t know what it was that stood out at the time but the instant I saw the front of his car I knew “something” was different and I liked it. After having a chat we got around to the discussion of his headlights, how they were different from OEM and how good they were at night.
So a few months later in December I was in the position that my headlights would be off the car for about 3 weeks and I decide to get in touch with Trups about his headlight upgrade. The reply I got back was full of detail and had the various options and prices listed. I went for both the OEM Steerable headlight upgrade (I’ll call these OEM from now on to avoid confusion later) and the fog light replacement with another set of Xenons (I’ll call these Fogs) which would give me a quad Xenon setup with all 4 dipped and all 4 main beam. There’s were various cosmetic options available too but I preferred the OEM look.
The work took around 2-3 weeks (it’s difficult to remember exactly) and cost £660 with a repair to a broken rear cover added in (previous owner used a self-tapping screw to hold the cover on).
I got the car back on Christmas Eve and straight away on the journey home via the M40 I noticed two things, the OEM dipped beams (didn’t try the fogs) were being reflected off signs over 200m away in the daylight (very impressed by the throw distance) and, after the fitment by MRC, the car’s headlight adjusters (not the headlights own internal ones) were incorrectly setup and the right light was pointing up in the sky blinding everyone, which explained the multitude of flashes I got from cars going the other way (again, still in daylight). Considering it was the holiday period I decided to wait for a few days before contacting Trups and asking for his advice.
So, on Boxing day (I think) I contacted Trups, explained what was happening and, in a bit of fantastic customer care, he spent the next few hours talking me through how to adjust the headlights internal adjuster to compensate for the incorrectly setup car adjusters. I was extremely impressed not only by his obvious knowledge but also that he took so much time out of what should have been his holiday to help sort out an issue which wasn’t caused by his headlights. Once we had them adjusted I was then able to spend some time actually using the lights with some night time driving rather than avoiding it due to blinding people but, as the adjustment was only a temporary one, the car adjusters would still need a proper setup once the car was finished.
So jump forward to April and I’ve just picked up my car from MRC and I popped straight round to visit Trups who not only corrected the cars adjusters (still not setup properly when I collected the car) but also “fine-tuned” all four individual beams so they blended into one constant light pattern.
So, after singing Trups praises (his customer care has been the best I’ve had from any company, even “respected” companies!), how well do his lights perform? Stunning………………….simply stunning! If you’ll excuse the obvious pun they’re night and day different to the performance of the OEM lights. Not only is the dipped OEM beam cut-off much sharper it also “throws” the light much further down the road and is whiter than before so, as I live down a narrow windy country road 5mins from the nearest street lamp, I find that extra white light being thrown further fantastic and the sharper cut-off also prevents other cars from being dazzled (front or rear). Then you hit high beam and Judas Priest it’s impressive! Google maps says the bit of road I used to measure the beam is 290m long and I’d say there was easily more left to go if the road was straighter.
One thing I haven’t mentioned so far (on purpose) is the performance of the Fogs. So far all my praise has only been concerned with the OEM lights which are easily 10/10 in my opinion but the Fogs……………….it’s like the new OEM’s but turned up to 11! I’m going to struggle to explain it well but the light seems more “powerful” and whiter than the OEM’s but they’re shorter ranged so it illuminates the ground infront of the car better but lost a small bit of range doing so. After the delay in night time driving while the headlights were mis-aligned I actually forgot about the having the Fogs so I spent about a week driving around with just the OEM’s and it was only after another chat to Trups that I remembered and went out for a night drive just to test them out. Just to set the scene there’s a very narrow, twisty, uphill 300m section of road nearby where the trees from both sides meet over the road creating an arch. I was used to driving this road with the OEM on main beam which is brilliant but when I switched on the main beam Fogs I genuinely laughed out loud and may have said the sweary version of holy poop quite a few times as the Fogs lit up the whole arch like a stadium flood light. After a few minutes I dropped back to dipped and found the OEM’s and Fogs were aligned to slightly different height levels with the OEM’s being slightly higher than the Fogs. This allowed me to see the difference between the OEM’s output and the Fogs so while it seems that the Fogs are more “powerful” at shorter range the OEM’s actually throw the light further so the combination of both is perfect!
I realise that I’m singing Trups praises pretty hard here I know, and people may not think that surely “doing some headlight stuff” can’t make the seemingly massive difference I’m describing here. All I do is give you this example – You can read a description of being a passenger in classbas/Trups car all you want and until you’ve actually experienced it you may have that sneaky suspicion that people may be exaggerating slightly, I mean it can’t be “that” fast can it?................and then you get a ride and suddenly you understand! These headlights are the same. I can explain how much better I think they are until the cows come home, and even post some pictures, but none of that does justice to them and they need to be seen to understand just how good they are.
Photos – As I’m a genius I’ve somehow managed to lose all the “before” pictures I took of the beam patterns & throw distance so I’m not really sure posting a set of “afters” without the “befores” for reference is worthwhile, although someone else on here has done these, and unless you’re extremely competent with a camera it’s difficult to capture the difference (the camera automatically compensates for brighter light etc when in Auto Mode). Hwoever I'll take some pics of the headlights tomorrow and update this post.
So TL:DR – do it, Do It, DO IT!!!!!!!
So a few months later in December I was in the position that my headlights would be off the car for about 3 weeks and I decide to get in touch with Trups about his headlight upgrade. The reply I got back was full of detail and had the various options and prices listed. I went for both the OEM Steerable headlight upgrade (I’ll call these OEM from now on to avoid confusion later) and the fog light replacement with another set of Xenons (I’ll call these Fogs) which would give me a quad Xenon setup with all 4 dipped and all 4 main beam. There’s were various cosmetic options available too but I preferred the OEM look.
The work took around 2-3 weeks (it’s difficult to remember exactly) and cost £660 with a repair to a broken rear cover added in (previous owner used a self-tapping screw to hold the cover on).
I got the car back on Christmas Eve and straight away on the journey home via the M40 I noticed two things, the OEM dipped beams (didn’t try the fogs) were being reflected off signs over 200m away in the daylight (very impressed by the throw distance) and, after the fitment by MRC, the car’s headlight adjusters (not the headlights own internal ones) were incorrectly setup and the right light was pointing up in the sky blinding everyone, which explained the multitude of flashes I got from cars going the other way (again, still in daylight). Considering it was the holiday period I decided to wait for a few days before contacting Trups and asking for his advice.
So, on Boxing day (I think) I contacted Trups, explained what was happening and, in a bit of fantastic customer care, he spent the next few hours talking me through how to adjust the headlights internal adjuster to compensate for the incorrectly setup car adjusters. I was extremely impressed not only by his obvious knowledge but also that he took so much time out of what should have been his holiday to help sort out an issue which wasn’t caused by his headlights. Once we had them adjusted I was then able to spend some time actually using the lights with some night time driving rather than avoiding it due to blinding people but, as the adjustment was only a temporary one, the car adjusters would still need a proper setup once the car was finished.
So jump forward to April and I’ve just picked up my car from MRC and I popped straight round to visit Trups who not only corrected the cars adjusters (still not setup properly when I collected the car) but also “fine-tuned” all four individual beams so they blended into one constant light pattern.
So, after singing Trups praises (his customer care has been the best I’ve had from any company, even “respected” companies!), how well do his lights perform? Stunning………………….simply stunning! If you’ll excuse the obvious pun they’re night and day different to the performance of the OEM lights. Not only is the dipped OEM beam cut-off much sharper it also “throws” the light much further down the road and is whiter than before so, as I live down a narrow windy country road 5mins from the nearest street lamp, I find that extra white light being thrown further fantastic and the sharper cut-off also prevents other cars from being dazzled (front or rear). Then you hit high beam and Judas Priest it’s impressive! Google maps says the bit of road I used to measure the beam is 290m long and I’d say there was easily more left to go if the road was straighter.
One thing I haven’t mentioned so far (on purpose) is the performance of the Fogs. So far all my praise has only been concerned with the OEM lights which are easily 10/10 in my opinion but the Fogs……………….it’s like the new OEM’s but turned up to 11! I’m going to struggle to explain it well but the light seems more “powerful” and whiter than the OEM’s but they’re shorter ranged so it illuminates the ground infront of the car better but lost a small bit of range doing so. After the delay in night time driving while the headlights were mis-aligned I actually forgot about the having the Fogs so I spent about a week driving around with just the OEM’s and it was only after another chat to Trups that I remembered and went out for a night drive just to test them out. Just to set the scene there’s a very narrow, twisty, uphill 300m section of road nearby where the trees from both sides meet over the road creating an arch. I was used to driving this road with the OEM on main beam which is brilliant but when I switched on the main beam Fogs I genuinely laughed out loud and may have said the sweary version of holy poop quite a few times as the Fogs lit up the whole arch like a stadium flood light. After a few minutes I dropped back to dipped and found the OEM’s and Fogs were aligned to slightly different height levels with the OEM’s being slightly higher than the Fogs. This allowed me to see the difference between the OEM’s output and the Fogs so while it seems that the Fogs are more “powerful” at shorter range the OEM’s actually throw the light further so the combination of both is perfect!
I realise that I’m singing Trups praises pretty hard here I know, and people may not think that surely “doing some headlight stuff” can’t make the seemingly massive difference I’m describing here. All I do is give you this example – You can read a description of being a passenger in classbas/Trups car all you want and until you’ve actually experienced it you may have that sneaky suspicion that people may be exaggerating slightly, I mean it can’t be “that” fast can it?................and then you get a ride and suddenly you understand! These headlights are the same. I can explain how much better I think they are until the cows come home, and even post some pictures, but none of that does justice to them and they need to be seen to understand just how good they are.
Photos – As I’m a genius I’ve somehow managed to lose all the “before” pictures I took of the beam patterns & throw distance so I’m not really sure posting a set of “afters” without the “befores” for reference is worthwhile, although someone else on here has done these, and unless you’re extremely competent with a camera it’s difficult to capture the difference (the camera automatically compensates for brighter light etc when in Auto Mode). Hwoever I'll take some pics of the headlights tomorrow and update this post.
So TL:DR – do it, Do It, DO IT!!!!!!!
