It's possible I'm going to be coming in to a '08 Mz5 in the near future. My father died and I have the opportunity to purchase his car from the estate. While overall I love the 5, the specific car wouldn't be my first choice based on being the base model and with an ATX. That said it's hard to say no to a '08 with 16k miles on it and which I know all of the history.

So all that said I would be thinking of doing a HID retrofit on the car. I've done a few modifications to my Mz3's halogen projectors and have a HID kit in them, but I'd really rather do everything the right way and with good parts on a new car. theretrofitsource.com is offering a bixenon HID retrofit kit for the 3 which comes with aluminum brackets to mount the new projector into the housing, and which allows you to keep the low beam projector mounted onto the high beam reflector. The whole kit including projectors, lamps, ballasts, wiring, and the bracket is around $300. I asked them if they have anything for the 5, but as of yet they haven't torn a set of those lights apart to look at them.

So has anyone opened up the lights on their 5? If so do you have some pictures you could share?

 

I've installed HiD bulbs with ballasts on my Mazda 6 and just re-used the stock non HiD projectors. I just had to re-aim them a little lower, and everything is good and bright.. (OH SHE-ite, i just remembered I lowered the front suspension an inch and have to re-aim again!).
I had to remove the bumper to get at headlights.
I also heard of people "Baking" the headlights at a low temperature in the oven to get them open on a Mazda 6, to install Halos!
Try a heat gun.

 

JUst did a search and found this quote from a reputable guy that did it a different way:
"best way ive found is no heat at all. ive only done it once. and it was the fastest, and easiest that separating. headlights has ever been. and no risk of potentially melting anything. lol. just take a 5 inch putty knife, and use that to separate the housing. its wide enough that it doesnt crack the housing, or mar it up with scratch's."
Quote from Monoxidechild.

 

Opening the headlights isn't a problem. I've opened the ones on my 3 at least 3-4 times. I installed aftermarket HIDs in the halogen projectors, swapped a clear lens onto the projector, trimmed off the "squirrel finder" projection on the shields and painted them black. Also spaced the lens while I was in there. After that I also installed halos. I had one dead halo so there were two more openings... once to remove the dead one and again to reinstall it.

What I'm looking for are interior pictures of how the Mz5's housings are put together and how things are connected. I've checked on several forums without finding anything. Couldn't even find anything on the 5 on HIDplanet. I don't have the car on hand, and it would be nice to not reinvent the wheel as it were to see how things are layed out.

I could just stick a HID kit into the 5, and yes it would work. That said you get a vastly better end product when using HIDs in a projector designed for them. While what I did with the 3 provided me a much better lighting experience than I would otherwise have gotten, it would be soooo much better with a retrofit.