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XenonDepot LED Headlight Bulb Issues

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17K views 50 replies 18 participants last post by  Dislocated 
#1 · (Edited)
Hey guys,

Long story short I purchased some H11 LED headlight bulbs for my 2015 GC Limited with the halogen housings and have been having trouble with them from day 1, about 2 months ago. I initially bought the bulbs without the canbus adapter and after a few minutes the bulbs would go out and would not turn back on.

After contacting XenonDepot they recommended trying the canbus to prevent flickering and ensure proper voltage to the bulbs. The lights functioned the same and would go out after a few minutes on AUTO and would turn off if the headlights where manually turned on.

After contacting XenonDepot again they are recommending using the canbus adapter and a relay harness to take power directly from the battery terminal. From what I understand the relay harness was only designed for use with the HID kits and is not meant for the LED bulbs. The LED bulbs should be plug and play with the canbus adapters. I have installed them properly and spread the heat sink according to the instructions to rule out improper installation.

XenonDepot is saying they havent heard of these issues with the LED bulbs from any GC owners. At this point I am having a hard time investing more time into this issue because I dont understand why the bulbs wont work.

For reference, the stock halogen bulbs work fine once reinstalled and I have tried using the LED bulbs without DRLs activated with no success.

Heres the link to the kit I purchased:

H11 LED Headlight Kit | H11 LED Upgrade


Anyone else having these issues? PLEASE HELP!!!
 
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#2 · (Edited)
I've been running the HID kit for over a year now. I had a bunch of issues in the beginning, the driver-side bulb would constantly go out and I couldn't figure it out. I finally found that the ground on that bulb wasn't tight enough. Once I tightened the ground connector, it's been flawless since.

Check and re-check the connections and grounds.

BTW: The 2014 Limited has the projector housing, I would assume the 2015's do as well. If you truly have a halogen housing, you should not be using an LED or HID kit.
 
#3 ·
I tightened all connections and double checked them when I first got the kit, there's not many when compared to their HID kit.

Since 2014 the GC's come with stock projector housings, for clarification I have halogen bulbs and not OEM HIDs/LED DRLs. Sorry for the confusion.
 
#7 ·
Not to threadjack, slightly off topic but relates to XenonDepot. I am running the Phillips Xtreme Ultinon H11 LED bulbs in my fogs. Installed them and had them running w/o issue for 2 months (exactly 2 months). Drivers side is now out but passenger side still lights. These bulbs have a 12 year lifespan and a 3 year warranty. I have contacted XenonDepot, let's see if they stand behind their products.
 
#10 ·
I'm having the same issue as fatpanda. After reading enough reviews figuring I did my hw I invested in these. I wanted a completely sealed headlight more or less without the need to drill holes anywhere. The bulbs look good for the first few minutes they're on but after a short ride around the block I couldn't even get them to turn back on by cycling the headlight switch.

FatPanda, if you've gotten any response or updates I'd love to hear about it.


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#11 ·
As of now I am waiting to try the bulbs with the canbus adapter and a relay harness. XenonDepot wont deem the bulbs defective until all attempts to remedy the situation have been exhausted. There is no definitive reason why the bulbs work for some members and not for others.

Unfortunately the Jeep is in the body shop and I cant play with the bulbs.

Also are you using canbus adapters?
 
#14 ·
No updates until I get the Jeep back from the shop. Im going to install the bulbs in the fogs with the canbus adapter and see if they work.

Yep I'm using the Canbus adapters. I haven't had a chance to reach out to xenon depot yet.


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Considering you have the adapters already I would throw the bulbs in the fogs using the adapters and see what happens. Some members have that setup without an issue. Otherwise your most likely going to have to try the canbus in addition to a relay harness.
 
#15 ·
Their CANBUS adapters are not very good ones. They won't work on my 2013 Ram, which is known to finicky with lights, just like the WK2s. They shipped me resistors for free that they normally charge for, but I don't want the extra wiring or hot (when used) resistors.

Other companies sell "LED decoders" which I think are just better CANBUS adapters, and they seem to make things work well in the 2013-2014 Ram trucks. Just aren't that many yet, only heard of a few local/regional companies doing it. The 2015-2016 Rams (and maybe the WK2s) seem to be the pickiest yet with a revised computer system, so even the "enhanced" CANBUS adapters/decoders may not work without a relay system.
 
#16 ·
No offense but I have interest in using these in my fogs. I wanted them for my main lighting source and am quite disappointed in my experience with them so far. I certainly hope there's a simple solution to this as I'm not willing to use the resistor path or an extra relay and drill out the dust cap.

Perhaps trying a Canbus from another company would provide better results?

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#17 ·
I understand what you mean, I originally bought these for my headlights as well. I should also mention if you continue to use the Canbus adapters from XenonDepot you will need to try the relay harness from them as well before they entertain the idea of defective merchandise.

HOWEVER, you will need a different driver for the LED bulbs as the relay harnesses from XenonDepot are 9006 connections and the LED bulbs use H11. You will also need to swap one of the H11 connections on the actual Canbus adapter to a 9006 in order to connect it to the relay harness.

It truly is a pain and I agree with your dissatisfaction. If you try a different Canbus adapter reply to this thread with your results.
 
#18 · (Edited)
I can't believe how impossible xenon depot is to work with if the products they sell don't even work the way they were intended and advertised to be used as plug and play. People have lives and jobs and don't have all day to be tooling around getting these LED's to work.

The point of going LED in the first place is to avoid relays and drilling dust caps. Their return policy is shit. I'm surprised people actually buy anything from them. As soon as I read their policy page on their website they instantly lost any chance of me purchasing anything from them...

If the product doesn't work you as the seller take it back. You don't try to force customers to patch it up / jerry rig it with bandaids. Maybe create a product that actually universally works and stop selling Chinese/Korean garbage. Also if you are telling customers to use a relay or canbus adapter after the fact to try and get them working, all that should be included from the start in the original product offering and noted on th product page that some cars may need use of additional items to get them working.
 
#20 ·
I'm going to stick up for XenonDepot as I have their Xtreme HIDs and canbus and have no issues in my 14, nor did I in my 12'. Why so aganist drilling the dust caps? It's easy as cake and the get new ones to go back to halogens is like 30$.


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#21 · (Edited)
Some people care about leaving things unmodified and don't want to add chances of moisture/dirt buildup inside their headlight housings. And as posted above, it's not as simple as you think to hook up a relay for LED's. The connectors don't match up
 
#26 ·
I ran the Xtreme kit in my 2012 for 3.5 years with no moisture. I also ran an Xtreme kit in a Subaru for 4 years with no issues. That and where it sits, it's well protected from the elements.

Don't want to cause an argument just trying to state that not all is bad and that a forum is usually where you hear negative things and not positive ones. For your one negative there's 10 other who have had no issues.


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#28 · (Edited)
Guys the bottom line is that 2015 are very finicky.

Whether you are using hid or LED you are using a lighting solution on a vehicle that has a monitoring system that is designed to look for specific conditions.

That condition is a 55 watt halogen bulb. That carries a certain amount of resistance and generates heat during operation.

Even though hid and LED are more efficient solutions for lighting you don't save on power consumption when you have to fool the monitoring circuit. This is because in some cause you have to add the load back to the circuit.


In the case of the 2015 just using a simple antiflicker capacitor is no longer enough like in the past with the 2011-2014.

The monitoring circuit if it does not see enough load with cut the power to the headlights and fog lights circuits thinking that the bulb is blown and therefore will reduce the electrical load on the system overall and cut power.

With a "running change" to the electrical in the second production year of a facelifted vehicle if makes it harder to predict that there would be issues when you use the 2014 as the benchmark only to find out that a minor change requires the use of an anti flicker and a relay harness in unison. As time progreases they may come up with less cumbersome ways to give the appear of load but for now we have to use the conventional ways.

Don't keep false hope that LEDS won't need external load stabilizes. If this was the case they would have devised a compact and self contained led unit already.

If we could disable the circuit monitoring then the additional boxes for tricking the nannies would not be needed.

We know you all are frustrated but Steve and the other guys at xenon depot are not at fault.

When selling retrofit parts for several different platforms certain difficulties only appear after you actually install the parts on the vehicle.
 
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#29 ·
Do you ever think there could be a plug and play solution that fits inside the headlamp with the dust cover on with this new system on the 2015+? Something that would not require relays?
 
#30 ·
The frustration lies with the company simply based on the fact that the product is misrepresented. People elect to go with LEDs to avoid relay harnesses, granted the Canbus on a GC is basically a standard at this point. However the company should articulate what additional equipment may be needed.

If I knew I was going to need a full HID setup, I would have just gone with HIDs and saved myself some money and time.

The fact of the matter is that this application is not plug and play and should not be labeled as such. The only fault seems to be the lack of testing before releasing the product. Considering the GC is known to have a finicky electrical system why not put forth more effort into testing an application so all possible outcomes are known.

That is my honest opinion.
 
#31 ·
If you have millions and millions of dollars to test every single car on the market and their electrical system be my guest. It's impossible. Can we stop complaining about it and move on? When you modify things come up and you deal with it and move on.


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#33 ·
I do agree with jeep_addicted. Apparently there's a bit more of a touchy system in the '15. Subbie, you mentioned you had no problems in your '14 which is what I for one was basing my research on whether or not I would have any issue upgrading my lightning. As luck would have it the flipping '15 does not like it's lightning system played with for what it's worth. Perhaps other members with '15's will share their experiences in brands they found to work?


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#36 ·
In 11 years aftermarket LEDs have progressed in directional and Brake lighting.

What has not changed is the size of the components that need run the LEDs.

For example lets look at the headlights on the Toyota corolla they are a relatively compact LED projector unit. what a power management module and the Light itself if still not all that compact.

Now look at something more sophisticated like an acura headlight with the multiple LED emitter. None of these systems are small.

They all have a power management (ballast) LED board and Optics.

So an aftermarket system has to be expected to some the same components for it to really last a respectable amount of time.

What most LEDs have always suffered from is useable light. They can generate lots of lumens but have trouble putting it where it needs to go.


The VLED triton design sort of solves the problem of omni directional light from an LED in a halogen housing but VLEDs has not attempted to adapt their triton into a headlight application. Using that style would work better in a Halogen to LED conversion, light spread and beam distance should be as good as HID.

I put togther a relay harness for 2015's that can be used on either the low beams or the foglights.

The harness is specific to the Wk2 so
1. Its long enough to reach the headlights
2. the connections are very simple
3. Does not require the use of resistors
4. Has one 12v and ground connection.

Each headlight is on its own circuit and has its own trigger.

the harness includes the CANBUS (anti-flicker) units and the harness itself.

If you opt for Low beam you will receive a molex adapter.
If you opt for fog beam you will receive a h11 adapter
 
#37 · (Edited)
I would suggest you try the diode dynamics anit-flicker module for their 2015 specific ram/mopar kit. As folks have mentioned, the 2015s seem to be different and I am not sure if xenon depot's stuff is up to snuff. After a failed attempt with a xenon depot hid kit (I had the same symptoms you describe with their hid kit), I got the diode dynamics hid kit with the huluxtek ballasts and anti-flicker module. No extra relay harness--just plug and play. A bit more money, but they work like a champ. Also, diode dynamics customer service is top notch.

I realize you want to stay with your leds--seems like the anti-flicker module should work with those. If it does not, just order the rest of the hid kit.
 
#38 ·
At this point I am sticking with the Xenon Depot parts because if they dont work then the bulbs are defective and Im going to return them.

Just a side note, but many people are saying that the electrical system on the 15 is much more particular than the 14. How is that conclusion being deduced? There are members with 15s that have no problems with aftermarket lighting. Why are these failures being attributed to the Jeep rather than the aftermarket lighting kits? I am not yet convinced the kits failure is due to the Jeeps electrical system.
 
#39 ·
probably because Xenondepot has an excellent reputation for selling only the best products. Philips makes world class products as well and by some is considered to be the best. FWIW....the Philips led bulbs didn't work in my 2014...BUT the xenondepot led bulbs work perfect. FCA/Chrysler has been known to have touchy electrics for as long as Ive had them...starting back in 2006.
 
#40 ·
I've got an update on this. I've been viewing some other forums where 2015 Ram owners are experiencing the same bulb shut off issue. They have listed a company that makes a decoder module which is supposed to fix the issue. So far several Ram owners have reported positive feedback and made confirmation that the modules do indeed work. I've not gotten the chance to try yet but they do sell the decoders separately. I've been told they would fix our issue.

Wondering if there's still any interest in this from anyone since the thread hasn't been active or seen positive resolutions


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#44 ·
Whoooa...whole loota anger going on here. Man I miss the old days of a couple hundred of us using each other as guinea pigs then figuring out what we need HAHA...

I have been buying from Steve and the guys at XD for over 5 years. Have a volt kit on lows/fogs still going strong for the guy that bought it from me. Whenever I had an issue, we resolved it.

As for running LED's on headlights without canbus/relays, well you did that to yourself. It is called the search function. Same with HID's...one takes less, the other more power. Adjust accordingly.

I just ordered 20+ bulbs from them and plan on getting the LED H11's once I sack up and spend the $$ on a quality bulb...still stings every time!
 
#47 ·
I'm having the exact same issue as above, I have a 2015 JGC with eagle eyes and the extreme HID kit. The lights are in reliable in the event they turn on. Most cases at night if I have set to auto they work. If I drive during the day and it turns dark only the DLR would turn on which can get dangerious. My only solution is to turn off and on the jeep. Turning on and off the headlights does not work. I shot an email to xenondepot hoping to see if there is a part I need to prevent this from happening but have not heard back. Hopefully they respond to this thread with some recommendations.
 
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