I'm about to purchase 4500K HIDs (I wanted close to stock-luxury car color temp).

I'm assuming our head lamp cover plastic were not made to handle the additional heat/brightness of HIDs so do they glare the clear plastic? If so, does anyone know how long it will be till this happens? By glare, I mean by it getting burnt or w.e. and appearing foggy.

Thanks.

 

I thought HIDs ran cooler (temp-wise) than Halogens... I could be wrong.

 

I'm pretty sure the HID bulbs run cooler than halogen bulbs.
They use about half the wattage of a halogen other than at
initial start up. So there should be no issue of melting anything.

I may be wrong but the 4500K bulbs are not pure white and
actually have a faint yellow/amber color which is not much
better than the halogens you have right now. The stock OEM
HID's use 4500K bulbs in projectors. And the projectors are
what give the light that tinted bluish/purplish color. If it's the
color you are going for in a stock tc housing, maybe you
should look into getting 6000K or 8000K.

 

Basically u can put HID Kit in our stock housing w/ No issues then??...I thought u needed Projectors!...

 

u dont need projectors. although stock reflectors usually create glare because of unevenly distributed light, our stock reflectors do a satisfactory job to keep from blinding other traffic. to have a beautiful beam pattern and to avoid blinding other drivers completely, projectors are the way to go.

i too believe hids run cooler. i havnt heard of a case where it has melted the housing.

when we talk about glare we are talking about concentration of light where it's not supposed to be projected, because we dont want to blind oncoming traffic. thats just for clarification.

 

putting HID in stock housing that isnt made for HID's is always a BAD idea! Those Lexus, BMW and whatnot have HID's becuase their housings were made for it. Ours is made for regular halogen bulbs. If you want HID's then do it right and get projectors. Ive read ALOT of info on HIDPlanet.com/forums and im now planning my retrofit for my tC. You can get plenty of info and those peeps on there know what their talking about!

this is what happens when you put HID's in a stock housing. (this is from an Neon SRT but you get the picture)

our housing probally will be even worse!

BTW, the cars that come stock with HID's use 4100-4300k bulbs!
I got this stuff from HIDPlanet.com

Also here is another good thing to know taken from the FAQ:
Yellow:
1500 k Candlelight
2700-2900 k Yellow painted fog halogen bulbs
-------------------------------
Yellowish white:
3200 k Sunrise/sunset
3200 k Premium H7 non painted halogen bulb
3400 k 1 hour from dusk/dawn
-------------------------------
White:
4100 k Philips/Osram OEM HID D2S
5500 k Bright sunny daylight around noon
----------------
Blueish white
5500-5600 k Electronic photo flash
6000 k Philips Ultinon HID D2S
6500-7500 k Overcast sky
-----------------
Blue:
9000-12000 k Blue sky
-----------------
Purple:
28000 Northern sky
12000-30000 k Ultra Violet light (black light)

 

good info. i really want to see our car's beam pattern with hids in the stock housings. from what i've heard they arent too bad.

 

here's a pic i saw on another HID thread on here. Its from "JDMIsStock". I believe he was selling HID kits also!

you can see the "hot spots" and the glare around it. It only looks like the car is about 5ft away, imagine how it would look at 10ft-20ft-30ft? Not good!



So think again when buying the so-called "HID kit"

 

IMO people are overreacting about requiring projectors. I admit
it would be nice to have but not necessary. There is a blinding
factor when the HID bulb is entirely exposed in the housing.
You can solve that problem with a shield that goes right in front
of the bulb. Then the light from the bulb follows the reflection
patterns of the housing. People suddenly think that HID
lights won't work in stock housing. I don't know why they
think xenon light won't follow the same reflection patterns of
a halogen light. You figure it came from the factory designed
to work so why not? I have a shield in front of the xenon bulb.
I haven't even had the need to adjust the height of the
headlights.

 

actually on xbs its a little worse since ur housings are mounted higher. the problems in the picture would be the light above the intended cutoff and the large white concentrated spots. imo its not too horrible.

 

Ah that's my pic. I personally thing it looks good from the drivers seat. I haven't driven in a car with HID projectors though, so I don't know.

I don't even WANT to get projectors. I don't need my headlights to look like Johnny 5 (short circuit) during the day. I think projectors look silly in our housing.

 

anybody know where to get the headlamps retrofitted? THanks

 

^HIDPlanet.com or HIDRetro.com

 

[quote="scionetics"] I don't know why they
think xenon light won't follow the same reflection patterns of
a halogen light. You figure it came from the factory designed
to work so why not? quote]

its actualy common sense.. D2S are longer than the 9005\6. so if the light bulb itself is longer, then it is putting light in area's that the factory didnt intend to put it.. thus causing glare.. and factory is designed to run halogen.. not HID.. more common sense.. the old tl's ran hid in non projection housings.. cause they were designed for it and used D2R bulbs. i suggest some research on hidplanet for knowledge.

its REAL projectors or nothing w/ HID.... all others are wannabe's

 

Dude do what you want, don't listen to what everyone else F'n thinks! I have the HID kit and love it, F projectors because this is my daily driver and I've NEVER had anyone flash me for it being to bright...so whatever screw what everone thinks if you want a HID kit go for it but 4500 might be too bright for our housing...anyways good luck!

 

Hence the reason I use SHIELDS in front of the bulbs to stop the blinding glare. If you
believe that xenon light reflects differently than halogen light in the same housing then I have nothing much more to say.

 

Halogen bulb

OEM HID D2S bulb


so ppl can know what were talking about.

just wait till the cop pulls you over.

 

Hence the reason I use SHIELDS in front of the bulbs to stop the blinding glare. If you
believe that xenon light reflects differently than halogen light in the same housing then I have nothing much more to say.[/quote]

so you custom make your own "sheilds", and if so, then your blocking light w/ those sheilds? so your degrading the HID kinda...

yes buddy, i believe and so does everyone esle who has/have done a retro, knows that since an HID has totaly differnt characteristics that a halogen bulb it will act differnt in differnt housings... not all factory housing have "sheilds".. so if a bulb is brighter, longer, and more colorful, how can it not reflect differnt? if it is longer, its gonna reflect off differnt parts of the housing... right? do you see what im saying? or am i not seeing somthing?