views on HID kits?

Diagro

Diagro

Diagro

Soldato
Joined
3 Jun 2012
Posts
11,253
Hey.

wondering what all your views are on the HID kits you can get from eBay or the rainforest.

my mazda3 headlights are pretty poor and I find myself struggling at night, so ordered a set
Unfortunately they sent h7 lamps and I need h11 so they going back.

Does anyone here use them? Do they simply replace the hologen lamps with some extra wiring?? And do 55w ones really make a difference? I want to be able to see at night!
 
Legal - yup
But whenever a car dazzles me on the road you can be 99% sure it's someone who has fitted some kind of aftermarket thing into their car.
Either into reflector lenses (or some projector lenses aren't designed for them either) and/or they haven't bothered to have them aligned.

So if you must do it, please only projector lenses and then make sure you pay the monies to make sure they are correctly aligned.
 
Diagro said:
Hey.

wondering what all your views are on the HID kits you can get from eBay or the rainforest.

my mazda3 headlights are pretty poor and I find myself struggling at night, so ordered a set
Unfortunately they sent h7 lamps and I need h11 so they going back.

Does anyone here use them? Do they simply replace the hologen lamps with some extra wiring?? And do 55w ones really make a difference? I want to be able to see at night!
Click to expand...

Yes, yes and yes, but in reflector lenses they will simply shine light in the forward general direction and won't be sharp, they'll blind people and not give you focused light
 
If you've got reflector headlights, don't even bother getting the replacement kit. You'll be one of the biggest idiots on the road. If you have projectors then maybe it'll be OK, but projectors are designed for either halogens or HIDs so it's likely your projectors are designed for halogens. Make sure you get them aligned.

Or just do everyone else on the road a favour and get some proper bulbs like Phillips Xtreme Vision etc.
 
stoofa said:
Legal - yup
But whenever a car dazzles me on the road you can be 99% sure it's someone who has fitted some kind of aftermarket thing into their car
Click to expand...

Every time I'm dazzled I find it is a Range Rover / Cayenne / Mercedes with OEM hid or led lights. Ridiculous intensity focussed 0.1 degree below the horizontal is technically legal but far more of a menace.
 
I've had HIDS in my Leon reflectors for 7 years.
Never been flashed.
Never failed an mot.
Never struggled to see.

Must be a great big idiot.
 
Been researching this as well and the other alternative are LED lights. Apparently they are just plug and play. Iciuld be wrong as there are so many info in the net saying its legal and illegal lol I don't know what to believe anymore
 
I've used them in reflector lenses with no issues (for me or anyone else) - plenty of road tests to ensure there was no blinding or anything going on.
 
I had an ebay kit which was ok as well as a £150+ HID4U kit that i got with a discount code. in projector lenses on my ep3

The HID4U kit was much better built in on the ballasts but realistically the wires and bulbs on both kits were very similar. not worth the price hike and they extra weight and size of the ballasts made them difficult to mount easily.

I gave up on HID kits as a bad job after sending the HID4U kit back for a refund and just moved back to regular bulbs. the difference wasnt huge enough for me to persist.
 
rjk said:
I had an ebay kit which was ok as well as a £150+ HID4U kit that i got with a discount code. in projector lenses on my ep3

The HID4U kit was much better built in on the ballasts but realistically the wires and bulbs on both kits were very similar. not worth the price hike and they extra weight and size of the ballasts made them difficult to mount easily.

I gave up on HID kits as a bad job after sending the HID4U kit back for a refund and just moved back to regular bulbs. the difference wasnt huge enough for me to persist.
Click to expand...

really?

I would have thought the HID are much brighter?

Here's me hoping then :O
 
HID are generally not much "brighter", but they are a cooler temperature than halogen lamps (after market kits horribly so IMHO), and this shifts the peak intensity to frequencies to which the human eye is more sensitive, and it therefore appears to the user that you're getting more light.

After-market HID kits are illegal in Germany, and with good reason too. There is insufficient glare control in reflector lamps and the result is that HIDs used in this type of headlight are very uncomfortable and easily dazzle. In projector lenses they are a bit better, but still not as good as OEM.
 
Diagro said:
really?

I would have thought the HID are much brighter?
Click to expand...

compared to decent headlight bulbs there isnt much of a difference. not enough to make me persist with it anyway.

Havana_UK said:
HID are generally not much "brighter", but they are a cooler temperature than halogen lamps
Click to expand...

i went for a fairly conservative set rather than the 100000k. they were very similar to the xenon lights in my s2000.
 
Howard said:
They usually emit a fair few more lumens per watt, don't they?
Click to expand...

Only because cooler white is inherently more efficient than warmer white. The "lumen" is a weighted measure based on the response to different wavelengths of the human eye.

The point is that unless that light is properly controlled (which it isn't in a reflector headlamp) it just gets thrown around all over the place, looks glary and dazzles other drivers. It's about illuminance and luminance, not intensity.

rjk said:
I went for a fairly conservative set rather than the 100000k. they were very similar to the xenon lights in my s2000.
Click to expand...
Many of these after market kits look (to me) like they're about 6000K or even higher and have really poor colour rendition. Looks horrible! Most OEM HIDs will be around 4000K.
 
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