It’s February, so a late Happy New Year y’all!

It’s been a quiet winter so far as working on Murphy goes. Due to my deep hate of cold weather, (tropical DNA, you see!), I’ve not really had the inclination to get outside and do stuff, other than the regular checks, (fluids, tyres, etc), and the weekly visit to the local car wash, (yes, I’m that lazy in the winter).

Murphy, however, has handled the cold weather incredibly well, as has done me proud as a daily runner with no issues whatsoever. We’ve ventured up and down to Buckinghamshire a few times for work, and all has been well. Best of all, even on the coldest, iciest and slightly snowy days, Murphy has still started first time!

I’m so glad I upgraded the heater earlier in the year, as this made the all the difference. In a very short time of starting off, the interior warmed up nicely, head to feet stayed nice and warm, and windows have been clear all the way – unlike last year when I had to wipe the windscreen every 10 seconds. It may have been a pain to change the heater, but I highly recommend it to anyone – it is well worth the pain!

So what have done lately… well, only one thing so far…

Last year, I upgraded headlights from old filament to H4 halogens, and what a difference that made. I did feel, however, that in those dark mornings and evenings, especially down dark country lanes, Murphy’s headlights could be better.

Without wanting to go down the HID route, I looked for better headlight bulbs, and decided to give Osram Night Breaker Plus a go. These are still similar current ratings to H4’s, but not white like HID’s. Here’s the spec from Osram’s website:

Up to 110 % more light on the road (compared to standard halogen lamps)
Up to 40 m longer beam of light (compared to standard halogen lamps)
Up to 20 % whiter light (compared to standard halogen lamps)
Drivers spot obstacles and dangerous situations much sooner
Optimum light for more time to react
Patented blue ring coating for less reflected glare
More efficient light production thanks to optimized inert filling gas formula
Higher resilience due to robust coil design

Well, I must say, these did the job very nicely. I can’t tangibly say if it’s 90% or 110% better or not, but there is a definitely a massive difference, and well worthwhile, in my opinion. My friend at work, Karl, reckons these may not last a year from his experience, but they have really improved nighttime visibility, on par with the modern cars and almost feel like HID’s. Full beams, in particular, throw light across a very good distance.

Best of all, when going along country lanes with said full beams on, cars in the distance can now see you coming earlier, and thus dip a tad earlier, whereas before they couldn’t see you until too late and always blinded you with their HID’s. This mere facet alone has made the upgrade well worthwhile for me, as I was getting really annoyed with routine daily blinding on the way home.

By the way, if you’re planning to upgrade to H4’s or Night Breakers, ensure you’ve upgraded to relays on the headlights, as it not only saves any risk to your wiring burning out due to the higher current consumption, but also makes flicking between main and full beams rapid, as opposed to delayed, with a momentary black null between switching – borderline dangerous!.

I chose to buy the Headlamp Relay Kit for £17.95 from MGOC Spares. This came with a pair of relays, (one for main, one for full beams), all wired up including fitting screws, connectors, fuseholder, cable ties, etc, etc, and good instructions. This was a very straightforward job to fit, so well played MGOC!

My next mission is to look into LED’s for other lights on Murphy…

Osram Night Breaker Plus purchased on eBay