The Red "R" . . . and Some Other Small Mods . . . Heated Lens Headlights!!

[Scoop]

Just delivered today - heated lens headlights!

Twice this season we have had to drive through heavy snow/ice storms. Ice accumulates on 2 things: The Adaptive Cruise Control sensor and the headlights. It's just an annoyance when the ACC stops working, but when the headlights ice over it can be dangerous. As you probably now, LED headlights don't heat up enough to keep ice from accumulating.

Oracle has just started shipping headlights with heated lenses. I put in a pre-order in December and received mine today. I'll do the install this weekend. It will change the look of the front of the Bronco which I'm not crazy about, but I wanted the heated lenses more than maintaining the original look!

Oracle has mixed reviews on their products so I'm hoping these will work out. They are the only heated lens aftermarket headlights on the market at this time.

 

[ep67bro]

I have heard of people having issues with the head lights icing over. Interested to see how they work out for you. I know I had that issue once with one of my Expeditons comoing back from Western MD in an Ice/Snow storm. Had to stop twice to bust the build up off the lights.

I have Oracle fog lights in my Mod bumper on my Bronco and they are super bright were an easy install. I have had them for about 2 years and I just noticed that one of the sealed LEDS has moisture in it. Not enough that affects the operation of them but it is visible.

 

[Scoop]

In both instances I mentioned above, I had to stop and knock the ice off. Almost worse is the road slush and ice build up on the rear flares! 2-3 inches will build up and makes it very hard to open the rear doors.

Life in Colorado . . . !

 

[ransil]

your retired you shouldn't be going out on crappy days

 

[Scoop]

Too late to turn back now . . .

It's a modular system - side markers are not integral with headlight unit but are mounted separately to the grille.

Pretty straight forward install. I was lucky in that I could pull the grille bottom trim piece nd the grille itself without removing the winch. That would have about doubled the time and work to do this.

 

[Scoop]

Good News, Bad News!

The install was pretty easy and finished the install in just a few hours. (Good News)

The front driver's side turn signal does not work! (Bad News). I'll need to contact Oracle on Monday.

For powering the heating elements they supply a fuse tap. I didn't really like that because the heating elements will then be activated in cold weather even if it's not snowing or having freezing rain. So I hooked it up to the #1 upfitter switch so I can activate them as needed.

They do change to look a bit!

 

[Scoop]

I got in touch with Oracle Tech Support this morning. They did a pretty quick response and wanted me to do some trouble shooting which I have done. I had to disassemble most of the installation and swap the turn signal bars side to side. The outage was still on the driver's side.

Disassembled but NOT swapped:

Now swapped:

I also unplugged and reconnected the main electrical connection to the headlight and no difference. This tells me the fault iis in the headlight unit itself. I'm hoping they send me a new one!!

I'm getting pretty good at removing the grille! Takes me about 5 minutes now. Hardest part is the top cover piece held in by plastic push in type trim fasteners. I end up breaking one every time I remove the cover. I'll need to get a bag of replacements before I break all of them!

 

[Scoop]

I got the final word from Oracle yesterday on the turn signal outage. They are sending me a new driver side headlight unit. Overall very good customer service - they asked a couple of trouble-shooting questions via e-mail - one question per email! - and determined it was the headlight unit. That took a couple days to go back and forth. One 2-minute phone call would have done the same thing! But I guess that's the way things work in the email/texting world - no direct communication!

 

[bigmuddy]

I got the final word from Oracle yesterday on the turn signal outage. They are sending me a new driver side headlight unit. Overall very good customer service - they asked a couple of trouble-shooting questions via e-mail - one question per email! - and determined it was the headlight unit. That took a couple days to go back and forth. One 2-minute phone call would have done the same thing! But I guess that's the way things work in the email/texting world - no direct communication!

Probably because you are talking to young engineers of an era that don't like or know how to talk on the phone..

 

[Scoop]

The replacement headlight arrived yesterday evening. But I'm leaving for the AZ Stampede tomorrow so I won't be able to install it until next week.

 

[stout22]

Hope to see a full report on the Stampede. That's on my event bucket list

 

[Scoop]

I can report the heated headlights work well. Tonight I drove through a pretty intense snow storm and ice collected on the front end - about 1/8 to 1/4 inch. The headlights stayed clear of ice. I did find out I need to adjust them when I install the new unit!