Best place to get HID kit online from?

Halogen projectors are still different to HID projectors (Although they are much much better than reflectors)
 
Really? I was under the impression the HIDs use a shallower, wider lens. (The science behind why this would be the case is beyond me I must admit!)
 
No?

It might become increasingly difficult to get third party HID kits to pass, but retrofit an OEM set of parts and I see no difficulty at all.

My retrofit will be undetectable from one that had been installed from the factory, complete with projectors, auto-levelling sensors and lamp washers (already on the car with the halogens).

Tell me more, i'd be interested in this in the future? Price etc? (I assume it's for your A6?)

Thx
 
No?

It might become increasingly difficult to get third party HID kits to pass, but retrofit an OEM set of parts and I see no difficulty at all.

My retrofit will be undetectable from one that had been installed from the factory, complete with projectors, auto-levelling sensors and lamp washers (already on the car with the halogens).

Well yes, in your example you'll probably get away with it.
However adding a washer system and auto-levellers makes retro-fits in 99% of cases cost prohibitive.

Obviously any HID kit fitted without the washers and levellers is almost certainly an MOT fail.
However it's more than that.
Someone over at Pistonheads was telling us that the traffic police have been issued with documents on "how to spot after-market HIDs".
So it isn't a simple matter of replace them at MOT time - you run the risk of getting stopped anytime.

I ran HID kits for a while in my old Octy vRS.
However I was fed-up of being flashed (even though I had them levelled correctly and was using projector lens).
Add in the potential MOT failure and potential to be stopped and in the end I swapped back to the best Halogens I could find before I bought my new car.

New car, HIDs from the factory.
Not the cheapest option, but guaranteed not to blind other traffic and 100% legal.
 
Tell me more, i'd be interested in this in the future? Price etc? (I assume it's for your A6?)

Thx

It all depends on what you wan to achieve.

I want to take mine from pre-facelift (non LED-DRL) halogens, and turn it into Xenon facelift lamps with DRL.

This involves new headlamps (be careful of what you end up with, there are supposedly a glut of facelift headlamps on eBay with faulty LEDs), an adaption wiring loom (to change the car from the older pinout to the facelift pinout, and make it Xenon capable), the Xenon range controller, possibly a new boardnetz (part of the convenience system I think, mine has the correct version to run facelift headlamps with DRL, so I'm OK on that part). At this point you'll have working headlamps, but no auto-levelling.

To get auto levelling to work, you need two sensors mounted to the suspension (one on the nearside rear, one on the nearside front), wired into the new Xenon range controller that I mentioned before.

Bit of a recode in VCDS and all should be hunky dory. I'm still collecting bits at the moment, but I'll be sure to do a proper write-up when I've completed the work.
 
I forgot to mention, the choices you have are mainly surrounding what options you have or want.

You can basically do any of the following:

  • Pre-Facelift Halogen > Pre-Facelift Xenon
  • Pre-Facelift Halogen > Pre-Facelift Xenon with Adaptive Headlights
  • Pre-Facelift Halogen > Pre-Facelift Xenon with Adaptive Headlights and High Beam Assist
  • Pre-Facelift Halogen > Facelift Xenon with DRL
  • Pre-Facelift Halogen > Facelift Xenon with DRL and Adaptive Headlights
  • Pre-Facelift Halogen > Facelift Xenon with Adaptive Headlights and High Beam Assist
Obviously, the more complex the change, the more work (and the more costly) it becomes.

I've not got, neither am I upgrading to Adaptive or HBA, so it's relatively simple. If I were only installing Pre-Facelift Xenons then the whole process would be even simpler (less wiring, and for some people, no boardnetz swapover).

The simplest way to get LED DRLs is to add the S6 DRLs, but this does involve some fabrication (as the S6 has no separate foglights, they are built into the headlight). The next simplest (but usually most expensive) is to fit RS6 headlights, as these have the pre-facelift wiring, so are pretty much plug and play (but you'd still need the auto-levelling sensors and xenon range control unit), but obviously RS parts carry a price premium.
 
I don't get the excitment about non projector lights. If they fitted well and the beam patterns is ok, there's no reason why you shouldn't do it. My 147 had an HID kit and it flew through it's MOT and never did I get flashed at and friends driving in front of me never once said they were blinded by them.
 
I remember the set of HIDs I originally fitted to my P1, one illunimated the moon, the other one pointed to the centre of the earth. very definitely work in progress back then!! :D
 
I don't get the excitment about non projector lights. If they fitted well and the beam patterns is ok, there's no reason why you shouldn't do it. My 147 had an HID kit and it flew through it's MOT and never did I get flashed at and friends driving in front of me never once said they were blinded by them.

Child killer.

Don't you know that every 8 seconds a child dies when you fit HIDs to non projector headlights?
 
I don't get the excitment about non projector lights. If they fitted well and the beam patterns is ok, there's no reason why you shouldn't do it. My 147 had an HID kit and it flew through it's MOT and never did I get flashed at and friends driving in front of me never once said they were blinded by them.

No excitement.
Every single HID kit I've seen in reflector lenses (with the exception of those factory fitted ones) bounce the light around like nobody's business and blind oncoming traffic.

So you didn't get flashed - doesn't really mean that much.
I tend not to flash other traffic as it's bad enough e not being able to see but to temporarily blind them as well is asking for trouble.

MOT - of course it wasn't an issue. The main part of the beam would have been aimed OK and the kits weren't illegal at the time.

Still doesn't in any way, shape or form make them a good idea in reflector lenses.
 
Why do people feel the need to drive around blinding people with their dodgy light fittings.

Swapping them for the MOT says it all really. :o
 
I don't get the excitment about non projector lights. If they fitted well and the beam patterns is ok, there's no reason why you shouldn't do it. My 147 had an HID kit and it flew through it's MOT and never did I get flashed at and friends driving in front of me never once said they were blinded by them.

Didn't your MX-5 as well? You followed me through Swansea in that, no issues. People get a bit hysterical about the whole reflector thing, it really depends on the individual headlamp design. Some are fine, some are not.
 
Child killer.

Don't you know that every 8 seconds a child dies when you fit HIDs to non projector headlights?

Really? I thought it was 13 seconds? Ah well I'll get over it.

No excitement.
Every single HID kit I've seen in reflector lenses (with the exception of those factory fitted ones) bounce the light around like nobody's business and blind oncoming traffic.

So you didn't get flashed - doesn't really mean that much.
I tend not to flash other traffic as it's bad enough e not being able to see but to temporarily blind them as well is asking for trouble.

MOT - of course it wasn't an issue. The main part of the beam would have been aimed OK and the kits weren't illegal at the time.

Still doesn't in any way, shape or form make them a good idea in reflector lenses.

Hope you don't lose any sleep over it or stress too much it's bad for the health. ;) not all kits are equal and there ate plenty good quality ones out there that when fitted correctly do not affect others.

If I'm honest factory fitted hid's on some vehicles and especially on 4x4s I find more blinding than a lot of converted kits.

Didn't your MX-5 as well? You followed me through Swansea in that, no issues. People get a bit hysterical about the whole reflector thing, it really depends on the individual headlamp design. Some are fine, some are not.

Oh yes forgot about that.

Agreed.
 
I got flashed with factory fitted HID's all the time in my Accord 2.4 Exec, but it was checked multiple times and if anything, they thought the beam was a bit low.

Had HID conversions from HIDs4u.co.uk on my Pug and my 318is coupe and never got flashed, so who can say why/when people will flash.

They claim:
Can HID be retrofitted to non-projector style headlights?
Yes they can. The beam patterns created with our quality HID kits are identical to the halogen bulbs. Some poor quality kits have poor beam patterns and can cause a lot of glare. We are always working to improve the HID kits and we were the first to offer the H7R bulb that was designed for the non projector applications. Our H4 Bixenon bulbs are also the best in the world and produce the best beam patterns with no glare.

And my experience would seem to agree with this, and even so, they can be switched back to conventional bulbs in about 5 mins, as they simply plug into the existing headlight bulb plug.
 
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