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Well, today is the day... the 2013 TSX Special Edition is getting traded in for a 2016 ILX Tech Plus & A-Spec Package.
I love my TSX, it's a comfortable great daily driver that's sporty enough and gets good gas mileage, but I'm ready for something new. I've been looking at the 2016 ILX's since they were first announced and I'm a big fan of the new looks with the upgrades and was also very interested in the updated engine paired with the DCT. My local Acura dealership that I purchased my TSX from sent me an email saying that they're over-stocked and are offering invoice pricing on all of their sedans, so I reached out to the Sales Manager to see they would work out a lease deal with the invoice pricing as well and he agreed to it. So Saturday I went in to test drive one and loved it, they gave me what I wanted for the TSX and gave me the ILX at invoice pricing, threw in some all weather mats, and we made a deal haha.
This will be my first time leasing a car, but I like to switch-up vehicles every few years so I figured it was the smart thing to do now. I really did love everything about the new ILX. It was quicker and handled better than my TSX, it'll just take a little used to dealing with the smaller interior... but I've owned multiple Si's before this, so it shouldn't be too bad. I do have one minor complaint and it's something pretty dumb, but I hate that it doesn't come standard with the LED fog lights. I am not about to get charged $700 to add them, so I figure I'll just look into getting some new bulbs and swapping them out myself.
You can always get a set of Morimoto LED fog housings if you wanted to go that route (more like $170 for the housings. simply swap out your reflectors and mount them to the factory positions powered by the H7 plug
They might look a bit to 5K for your taste though since they wont match the color of the headlights and DRLs (which Acura lists as 5500K's)
So if you want something thats a better match, check out
They are now (even cheeper then before which is insane) $122 and are the first LED's I've ever seen and tested that truly-truly work. I mean better then OEM work... its amazing.
They are a perfect color match to your existing lights and have a very wide beam (enough to be seen out the side windows) while providing powerful down range lighting to fill in the gaps your low-beams have
Heres some photos for proof.
Up to a wall you can see the main beam that uses the rear reflector to provide fantastic low illumination
And when I parked closer, you can see the very-wide cuts it also provides to the sides (since these reflections come from the side of your OEM housing) truly functional Homogeneous bulbs, they are amazing.
I recommend every A-Spec owner out there gets them (unless they want to rock some PlasmaIon Yellow PIAAs for w/e reason)
Seriously... Just buy the Philips now, you wont be disappointed.
Yeah direct PnP no hasle super bulbs. They are 50% brighter then lower wattage H8 bulbs (like on accord or coronas) and equal brightened to the higher wattage H11's we use.
The only 'installation' hardware they come with is two tiny zip-ties for cable management... Should you need em.
Get a pair of Morimoto T10/194 LEDs (The Retrofit Source) for the licence plate lights since they have a flat COB board that would fire downward onto your license plate. And Philips 921 VisionLED bulbs for the reverse lights ($25 a pair on Amazon)
Helps round out the key LED positions that Acura forgot to fill lol.
You can even do LEDs in the rear turn signals (My Brand of 20W 7440's from AF-Lighting.Net work great) but you'll get hyper flashing if you don't add resistor packs. That's a little more work to do; but not impossible.
I'll definitely be switching over the license plate bulbs as well. Not too worried about the reverse lights though.
Thanks for all of the information though!
I just ran out to my car on lunch and of course, the maintenance crew went out and mowed the lawn after it rained, so now half of my brand new clean car isn't so clean anymore
Hey Thmanx, how long did it take you to get your bulbs from Amazon? I just ordered a set and it's estimating the time of delivery from Aug. 15th - Sept. 25th.
They are direct PnP no worries there. The Morimoto brand of LED and HID products that TheRetrofitSource designed is always at the top of the league for quality. There are some other 3rd party COB style 194 bulbs out there, but they are longer and not nearly as nice.
The Morimoto ones are by far the brightest, smallest, and most reliable style of these small LEDs.
Can't wait to see photos of the new Philips Fogs installed. They are seriously that good, they will put a smile on your face the moment you light them up.
Can't wait to see photos of the new Philips Fogs installed. They are seriously that good, they will put a smile on your face the moment you light them up.
Yeah I'm pretty excited to get them. It's so pathetic, but I haven't even turned on the fog lights on the ILX yet because I know how dumb they will look with the LED headlights. And I'm a big fog light fan. Most people think it's sad, but I would rather have fog lights on a car than a sunroof.
Now I haven't even bothered to jack the car up and take a look yet, but how much of a pain is it to get the stock bulbs out?
Lol trust me you'll be happy once you install the license plate lights.
There will be a nice "ahh wow" moment once they light up at night. And it'll give the car a refreshed modern edge from the rear facia at night for sure.
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All you need is about a 6" long philips screwdriver to remove a single screw thats accessible through a small hole under the front bumper. This screw secures the front bezels in and is auto catching (wont fall through, just unscrew from its bracket), and a flat-head to pop the cover out. Once you do that, there are 2 philips screws that mount the foglights to the bumper. Un-do those, remove the fog housing, swap bulbs, plug em in, and reverse the process. It takes all of about 5min per side.
I'm die-ing to hear back from you on the holy-shit factor lol.
Dude... Don't even get me started. So I ordered with Prime and I'm being quoted that I won't be getting the bulbs till mid-August or September. I have no idea if they're out of stock or what's going on. Pretty annoyed though.
Those should arrive pretty quick, TRS ships USPS so it'll get across the country in 2-3 days.
Since they are in Georgia and your in (NY?) it'll be there in 2.
When I did my first order, I ordered from 2 amazon vendors (one USDM based, the other Japanese)
Just to see if there was a difference (aside form the cost)
I forget which came faster, but it was about the same 7-10 day time frame.
The international box though had slightly different advertising lingo on it such as lm counts and brightness numbers which I know they had to remove on the US box for all the flak the headlight companies got a few years back about claiming brighter bulbs and false advertising.
But it was on the international box I was able to read that the bulbs themselves arnt actually 1200lm each, but are 1200lm* -equivalent-
Each bulb is actually 700lm, but believe me its the brightest effing 700lm you've ever seen because its actually focused right. So i fully believe in their claims and have no buyers remorse.
International Box
US box
You can notice theres no advertised numbers of *45% brighter or 2400lm's on the US box since they could be sued for misleading information. Even though its kinda true. They really are 1200lm equivalent bulbs in brightness when i compared them to brand new sylvania bulbs, and if you car had the lower wattage H8 bulbs, they 'would' be 45% brighter. If you read in the back of the box they claim only a 5% brightness improvement from the H11... but STILL they are effing amazing LEDs
I was a little afraid the other ones might be 'fakes' but my power tester showed me they pulled the same power and the bulbs were identical in build quality, weight, feel, etc...
So ironically over the weekend, Amazon sent me an updated email with a new estimated time of arrival for my lights. Now they're saying by July 28th. We'll see...
Well, my license plate LED's came this morning so I installed them tonight. Everything went incredibly smooth except for getting the stock bulbs out of the housing. What a pain in the ass! They did not want to budge.
After all is said and done though, these look phenomenal! I wish I was actually driving behind my car tonight just so I could check it out haha. Thanks again for the suggestion Thmanx.
Some times it can be hard to find a good LED option, especially when they need a 90° angle like our cars do (some interior bulb also use this). But the XB's are always great performer ~5500K or so.
Glad you like the output. Cant wait to see what you get with the H11 LED fogs. (did you also get the Philips 921 VisionLEDs for the reverse bulbs) Just search "Philips 921 LED" in Amazon to find the pairs for $25 or so.
Nope, didn't order the reverse lights. I'm honestly not too worried about those since they won't be lit up as often as the rest. Maybe down the road though.
Well, my license plate LED's came this morning so I installed them tonight. Everything went incredibly smooth except for getting the stock bulbs out of the housing. What a pain in the ass! They did not want to budge.
After all is said and done though, these look phenomenal! I wish I was actually driving behind my car tonight just so I could check it out haha. Thanks again for the suggestion Thmanx.
@Waldo87 How difficult was it changing the license plate bulbs? It looks like I have to take off the inside cover to access the bulb. Did you have to remove all of the plastic tabs or just the front was enough to get to it?
@Waldo87 How difficult was it changing the license plate bulbs? It looks like I have to take off the inside cover to access the bulb. Did you have to remove all of the plastic tabs or just the front was enough to get to it?
Getting to the bulbs wasn't difficult at all. I used a small flat head screw driver to pop out 4 of the plastic clips? I'm not sure what to call them haha... but anyways, I removed 4 of them and used a Phillips head screw driver to remove the tiny center screw. Then I just pulled the cover back a little to gain access to the lights.
Once you have access, you squeeze the tabs on the light bulb housing to pull it out, disconnect the wiring, and then you're golden. The hardest part was actually removing the bulb. It doesn't come out just by pulling/wiggling it with your fingers. I had to finally use a flat head screw driving to pop it out.
It could have easily been a 10min. process if the bulbs came out easier.
Ohhhhh man! Got a confirmation email that my fog lights have shipped and should be delivered tomorrow. Can't wait!
WOOO!!!!!!!! :gheywave:
Yeah thats what I remember about my pair of H11's. They went from no ship date, to like a month, to suddenly shipped and arriving in like 2 days... All and all It was still about 7-10 days from order placed to package at the door.
At least its easy as hell to install them. No joke, about 5 min per side. You'll spend most of your time trying to get that one screw that goes from underneath back into your fog bezel. (its a blind screw so you can't see it, gotta do it by feel; but at least you can't lose it)
@Thmanx I was trying to remove the fog light cover but had no success. I unscrewed the screw from the bottom. I tried to put a flat screwdriver through the tab and pull it but its not coming out. How much force did you have to use? I used a cloth and covered the tip of the screwdriver and tried pushing it out but no luck. I am kind of hesitant about scratching or damaging that end of the cover.
@Thmanx I was trying to remove the fog light cover but had no success. I unscrewed the screw from the bottom. I tried to put a flat screwdriver through the tab and pull it but its not coming out. How much force did you have to use? I used a cloth and covered the tip of the screwdriver and tried pushing it out but no luck. I am kind of hesitant about scratching or damaging that end of the cover.
Holy hell were those fog light covers a pain to get off! You really have to use some force to get them off. Took longer than expected, but I'm happy it's done.
I used my plastic pry tool to get the covers off. It was quite easy. I thought the hardest part of replacing fog lamps was getting the screws off from the front bumper
HAHA! I was at a concert all day and night and literally just got home at midnight. Of course it's raining out too so my pictures that I just took look like crap. I'll have to try again tomorrow. Here's a quick pic from right after I changed them in the garage:
07-13-2015 | 11:05 AM
:gheywave:
