Hi Everyone,
Been lurking here awhile, and couldn't find many reviews of these before taking the (relatively expensive) plunge.
First things first, I'm in no way associated with the reseller or the manufacturer of these, I paid dollarydoos to get them.
Second things second: the legality of these is a bit questionable. The reseller claims that they are ADR compliant and legal in every state in Australia, but I've read other documentation that suggests unless the vehicle came with an LED option as standard equipment (to my knowledge, the ML didn't), then you cannot fit LED globes. I am not a lawyer, given it seemed unclear in any case I figured my own risk v reward and thought it worthwhile. Everyone that owns a car is an adult and can make their own decisions.
Anyway, on with the review. I happened to be back home in QLD at a couple of weekends ago, and dad mentioned having found some LED headlight globes for his truck. They seemed pretty cool, but he hadn't fitted them yet. The reseller on ebay was very accomodating and had sent him along a couple of CANBUS modules free of charge as he had some concerns about voltage differences on his very favourite toy causing electrical problems - the modules should not be required according to the reseller or my own experience thus far. Dad didn't end up fitting his.
Anyway, two weeks later and one of my headlights doesn't come on low beam, so I bit the bullet and grabbed a set of these, for $130 delivered from https://www.ebay.com.au/usr/jtxlighting. They've got a real address in VIC as well, and postage was incredibly quick - I ordered at about 6pm one afternoon and they were in my letterbox when I got home from work the next day.
If you just want all the pictures of the install: https://imgur.com/a/n34It
The box: https://i.imgur.com/A8wgZMh.jpg
So, remove the old bulbs as normal. If you haven't done that before, when all else fails, brute force usually works. The plastic clip at the back should just pull straight off with a bit of wiggling. Once that's done, the rubber seal should pop off (there's a pull tab to help with this), and then unclip the little metal clip holding the headlight itself in place, then it should pull straight out using the electrical connectors on the back.
Now, the major problem I had with these lights is they have quite a large heatsink on the back, making them more difficult than regular bulbs to fit. Fortunately (?) for me, age and poor quality control meant that one of my rubber seals already had a bit of a split, so I could work the new bulb in through that. The heatsink then sits on the other side of the rubber seal (where a normal bulb would just have the electrical connector poking through). This is useful, as twisting the heatsink (on the H4 model) rotates the bulb inside, leaving the physical mount as is. This allows adjustment of the bulb to achieve the best results with your reflector, as the bulbs have two thick metal strips running down the sides - this is one of the reasons I'm of two minds on the legality still.
Bulb inside grommet: https://i.imgur.com/dn43XYm.jpg, https://i.imgur.com/62Mo6rJ.jpg
Here it is installed from the front: https://i.imgur.com/wZ7SKXE.jpg
Here it is installed inside the engine bay. Please note, getting this back in is an utter, utter bastard. You've got to get the bulb lined up with the corresponding slots for the 3 metal tabs, and work the metal clip back down to latch the bulb in place, all at the same time, with not a lot of room. The heatsink is also quite sharp - not sharp enough to cut, but definitely sharp enough you'll get that 'I played with lego too much today' feeling by the time you've worked it in and adjusted the rotation to match your reflectors best.
https://i.imgur.com/cq7sffm.jpg
So, a note on that horizontal rotation. Here it is just after install, before I adjusted it (the other light is still the old working bulb): https://i.imgur.com/VtS7IJU.jpg
With just horizontal rotation adjustment, I got it looking like this (didn't think to take it from the same angle, just accept it was better ): https://i.imgur.com/L3OasHj.jpg
Can't stop there, so I pulled the other bulb out with its (up until now) intact rubber seal. Preferring to choose where the destruction happened that waiting for the inevitable tear, I cut a matching line in the side of the seal, like so: https://i.imgur.com/RC7auz7.jpg
Burning through patience and fingers again, I got this bulb installed. This side was worse, there's more shit hanging out over near the batteries, and I tapped into the connector a while back to use as the high beam sensor for the other set of rather bright LED's hanging on the front of my ute..
https://i.imgur.com/Za96YTH.jpg
Now with both bulbs of the same type, it was looking a lot more even: https://i.imgur.com/I0gHC11.jpg
They still looked a bit high to me - I didn't have time to do a full adjustment, so I fiddled with the horizontal screw until they were lower. How much lower? A bit - I really wasn't taking measurements, just kinda eyeballed that one.
I don't know of anywhere around Melbourne I can go without pissing off someone with the lights, but if someone points me in the right direction I'll head out and get some proper photos of the differences sometime soon.
Early takeaway, short of a full trial out in the bush somewhere? They seem very solidly constructed. The heatsink I was bitching about is quite heavy, which is usually a good sign, and they claim an IP67 waterproofing rating. The install is a bit of a pain, but didn't take more than about an hour or two, all things considered, so relatively easy as well - I would have preferred if they had a more normal shape, but to accomplish that, you'd need to look at some kind of remote heatsink, which would lose a lot of efficiency, if it were even possible - at that point, you'd be better off just replacing the whole assembly. My only suggestion to the ether would be a removable heatsink, so you could at least fit the bulb as normal, then the rubber seal, then attach the headsink on the other side.
They are also much brighter than the bulbs I had in before, which were Phillips X-tremeVision Plus +130%, which were themselves better than stock - if you're tired of not being able to see anything at all when night driving without having to flip the high beams on, I'd recommend giving these a try.