LED bar on Aurions

[DHA2453]

Wondering if anyone has had any experience installing an LED light bar on their Aurions.

[07Prodigy]

Yup, where are you putting it?

Edited October 22, 2015 by 07Prodigy

[Sean K]

here is my light bar, if it looks on a angle you would be right, the bracket isn't on properly and it will be fixed soon

[JDT92]

Yep mines a bit more discreet

[DHA2453]

Yep mines a bit more discreet

here is my light bar, if it looks on a angle you would be right, the bracket isn't on properly and it will be fixed soon

Yup, where are you putting it?

image.jpg

07Prodigy - this is pretty much the same look I'm after. But I'd be more interested in these new LED numberplate mounts which I think Sean K has got going on. More refined.

JDT92 - now that's all next level! Can't really get that creative in my Touring.

I'm hoping to get my own bar done up as a Christmas present (to myself, and the car), so i'll post up some pics asap.

[DHA2453]

Finally managed to get myself a full kit off eBay. Numberplate mount, wiring kit, all along with the 20" single row 120w bar (I splurged a bit) for $126 which is pretty reasonable I think.

 

I just want to check with you guys, how did you go with wiring? I've been told the Aurion might be negatively switched / grounded (had the same thing on my 2004 Kluger). This is a problem because I want to wire in with the high beam, not entirely on a separate switch.

[riftime]

Thanks all for jumping into this chat. I’ve had a look at some light bars on the weekend and then I got stuck on mounting options. Saw a couple of number plate mounting brackets, one had a nudge bar built into it. However, they are all flat, unlike my bumper bar! My number plate seems to have a plastic frame that is curved on the bumper side and flat on the plate side. How did you guys deal with this? 
 

Purely from a form perspective I could put the bracket on the same plastic frame the number plate is currently sitting on. However it looks quite flimsy, unsure whether it will last or even survive one long trip? Also unsure on what’s behind the bumper bar skin and whether the bracket would be screwed into something solid or only sitting on plastic? I’ve taken the bumper bar skin off a couple of times to replace the HID bulbs, but can’t recall what’s behind the number plate. I imagine that if the light bar frame is screwed into something solid behind the skin, it would create a few extra steps in removing the skin to replace the HID bulbs next time 🙂. Unsure about the wiring, is there a connector somewhere behind the grill or does the cable from the light bar go all the way to the battery/relay? Again wondering if in the future I would need to almost uninstall the light bar to remove the bumper bar skin?

Thoughts?

[riftime]

I thought I'd post where I landed on my LED light bar installation experience ....

I ended up buying and installing the 22" ST4K light bar from STEDI on my '07 Aurion Presara. 

Night time driving on dark country roads is now ..... WOW. Not sure how I lived without it until now and why I waited this long 🙂   Maybe I should have bought the smaller version as this one's a little bit imposing, but the light output is just amazing. I used to think that my HID headlights along with the high beams were awesome, but compared to the light bar they're like one of those old dynamo bicycle lights when you didn't pedal hard enough 🙂

A couple of points/experiences through my installation:

MOUNTING - I ended up using the simple Maxi Trac Universal Driving Light Bracket sold by Repco. It seemed stronger than those small nudge bar variants I've seen. Also, I ended up taking the whole front bumper bar skin off and drilling some holes into the real bar/frame behind. That was a bit of a job, but the bracket is now held (via long thick bolts) to the metal frame/bar behind the skin rather than skin-mounted. It's very solid. Having the bracket mounted on the skin alone didn't seem right to me. However, I'm not looking forward to the next time I need to replace the HID bulbs and need to take the skin off again as I'll need to first take the light bar off 😞 

HEADLIGHT (HIGH BEAM BEAM) ADAPTER - I didn't like the idea of leaving the cover off my HID light bulb enclosure, so instead I slightly trimmed the lower side lip of the cover, just enough not to press/cut on the cable when screwing the cover back on. So the light bulbs enclosure is still covered properly even with the in-line adapter now present.

SWITCH - The wiring harness came with a switch to disable/enable the LED light bar (when the high beams are turned on). I didn't have anywhere to mount the switch, no free/available panels for mounting new switches (on the Presara they're all taken by parking sensors, headlight washers, etc.). So I ended up drilling a hole in the plastic cover under the steering wheel and mounting the switch there. Kind of hidden, roughly where the driver's left knee is located. Easy to reach down with my left hand to turn it off/on, but only if you know where it is 😉

Everything else was fairly easy, even though I'm much too old for the yoga I had to perform to route cables through the firewall behind the passenger side glove box, etc.

Aside from the mechanical challenges mentioned above, the wiring harness from Stedi was very straight forward to install, it came with a couple of different headlight adapters of which one matched that of my headlight.