HID question

MassiveJim · 3 Oct 2017 at 01:05

I think one of both of my HID bulbs are on the way out on the ST220.

The question I need to ask is, if I go to a place like HIDS4U, i can get a 55w kit for ~£100
or I could just replace the bulbs fro about £70.

Am i missing something here ? for an extra £30 I can get brand new ballasts/bulbs the lot.
Would it be plug n play if I were to buy the "stealth" kit from HIDS4U or is there some soldering and wire cutting needed?

acemastr · 3 Oct 2017 at 01:28

Should be plug and play with a power feed from the battery generally

--Mike-- · 3 Oct 2017 at 09:20

Surely the kits are for cars without HIDs from the factory? They rely on the cabling from the non HID bulb to plug into which will be different from your factory setup.

Edit, looks like they do do a replacement kit for D2R and D2S HID bulbs - says they're plug and play so should be ok!

MassiveJim · 3 Oct 2017 at 11:15

--Mike-- said:
Surely the kits are for cars without HIDs from the factory? They rely on the cabling from the non HID bulb to plug into which will be different from your factory setup.

Edit, looks like they do do a replacement kit for D2R and D2S HID bulbs - says they're plug and play so should be ok!

In theory yes, but I can't see them creating kits for every individual manufacturers wiring loom.

Cars with standard halogens is easy, they only need to create a loom that is compatible with a H7 or H1 bulb for example.

Whereas you wouldn't want to plug my D2S connector into the new ballast as it won't be delivering the correct voltage.

Si105 · 3 Oct 2017 at 11:24

Do you have original xenons or an aftermarket hid kit?

Just replace the bulbs if they are the factory ones, will be far better than sticking in an aftermarket hid kit (which wont even fit without modification)

MassiveJim · 3 Oct 2017 at 12:47

Si105 said:
Do you have original xenons or an aftermarket hid kit?

Just replace the bulbs if they are the factory ones, will be far better than sticking in an aftermarket hid kit (which wont even fit without modification)

My thought process was this
New bulbs are going to cost me ~£60
I can get the 55w aftermarket kit for £87 with discount.

My car is 14 years old, I don't know if the issue is with the bulbs or the ballasts.
So I could replace bulbs and ballasts and uprate them from 35w to 55w at the same time and it would only cost me £27 more.

I have called HIDS4u, it would require some loom splicing in order to work.

Decisions decisions

snapdragon69 · 3 Oct 2017 at 16:16

MassiveJim said:
M
I have called HIDS4u, it would require some loom splicing in order to work.

Decisions decisions

WOuld not work. The nw bulbs would have halogen bases such as H1 or H7 glued on as they are meant to be for converting halogen lights to hid.

MassiveJim · 3 Oct 2017 at 16:27

snapdragon69 said:
WOuld not work. The nw bulbs would have halogen bases such as H1 or H7 glued on as they are meant to be for converting halogen lights to hid.

They do a D2S Kit actually.

Invertigo · 3 Oct 2017 at 16:38

Like you said they’ll work, but will need splicing in. As an example my Xenon lights have a single plug from the car, then the ballast plugs into the bottom of the light. This would have an in line ballast that would need mounting somewhere, cables routing into the light somwhere and then splicing wires onto the car wiring.

I just went for new bulbs

MassiveJim · 4 Oct 2017 at 14:12

I'm going for new bulbs

apparently it is impressive that the current bulbs have lasted 14 years

Invertigo · 4 Oct 2017 at 21:30

I’m led to believe that, at least with the older xenon bulbs, the on/off cycling causes significantly more wear than actual run time, so perhaps that has something to do with it.