Hey everyone! I pretty new here, and i've only been a tC2 owner for a couple months now. I'm getting that itch to start modifying things, and the first thing I did was HID's, unfortunately I had to send them back cause a bad ballast and some cheap bulbs I paid way to much for.
Anyway upon installing them, while I had them, I noticed the beam pattern against the wall was a bit odd. The driver side seemed much brighter and much more focused, while the passenger side seemed less bright and smaller spotting. I re-installed my halogens and still noticed the same thing. Does anyone else notice this, or is this just my car?
I have not adjusted the lights up, down, left or right. This is driving me crazy!

Here is a shot I got against a fence.

 

It's like that with the TC1 too. I always assumed it was sharper on the left because that was the oncoming traffic side.

 

Check if your bulbs are seated correctly, also bend our squirrel spotters down a bit to get rid of it.

 

^ yup, get rid of the squirrels and they'll look better

 

Yeah I checked and double-checked to make sure they were seated properly, but what are these squirrels you talk of?

 

I found the squirrel spotter you are talking about with the help of google. Is the squirrel only on one headlight or both?

 

Haha your not the only one, i notice it on the road en it irritates me

 

If i didn't notice it so much on the road it wouldn't bother me. It is however seriously annoying. I feel like I am trying to follow it or something.

 

It's in both headlights.

 

Mine is not that bad. I think it is the way the projector is set up. My fathers 2011 Venza has a nice clear cut off with HID's.

 

I just got my HID kit back from Retro-Solutions. They replaced the ballast and called it a courtesy even though they should have been under warranty since I owned them for 1 whole week.
They didn't replace their ____ty bulbs that the tabs broke off inside my head lights. Anyway I am going to get some new bulbs assuming the new ballast even work. At this point I don't really care anymore. I'm tempted to just toss this junk and buy some $50 DDM tuning lights.
At the time I install these again I am going to look for the squirrels :-)

 

Mine are the same way its very annoying... But i can recommend DDM hid's iv had used them in all of my vehicles iv owned (4 mine 1 fiance) and havent had a problem with any

 

Someone please elaborate...

 

Since I haven't even looked at mine yet. I assume it looks something like this. I'm not sure if this guy has already removed the squirrel or what.

 

Yes that is what causes the squirrel finders/spotters. There should be an angled flap of metal that was covering that unless you already broke it off (from looking at the picture).

From my experiences with the TC1 headlights:

The metal flap should be angled at about 45-50 ish degrees from the top of that cut off shield, covering that hole and angling down. You'd want to bend it down to about 25-30 ish degrees. Please note this ISN'T a precise measurement. After bending it down, place your bulb back in and fire it up to see if it got rid of it. If not bend it a bit more.

If you bend it all the way flat, you'll get a thin line of rainbow color above your cut off. Like a colorful thin ufo about the cut off lol. You can experiment with it if you like that.

If you do BREAK that metal flap, you now have a gigantic ___ spotter. I covered it up with aluminum tape until I made a new cut off shield with a soda can.

I did all this without taking the headlights apart, until I had to replace the cut off shield.

Again this is all I learned with the TC1 headlights, I assume TC2 are similar. If something is a bit different don't blame me

A good site to check out is: www.hidplanet.com/forums
Theres TONS of info that would be sure to help you out.

 

I bent mine all the way down, hopefully it will be alright. I haven't finished modding my '08 headlights yet but I'm anxious to get them finished.

It should look something like this:

 

Thanks for the info. I think I am going to bend it all the way down.

LOL! thats a pretty crazy squirrel!

 

Here's an update of what i'm dealing with from retro-solutions.com

I got my HID kit back from Retro-Solutions.com , and before I went ahead and installed it I laid everything out all nice and neat I went ahead and tested everything. It seems both ballast work this time, but they completely left out the plug adapters for me to plug in the wiring properly. I'm also a little confused as to why my lights are two different colors now. One of them looks to be a 6000k, and the other seems to be near a 5000k.
WTF are those idiots doing!
They go and blame me and say I broke the ballast and lights. It's really sad they don't want to keep a repeat customer and make things right. I don't even think telling them the lights are clearly two different color spectrum, and they didn't include the adapters to hook-up to my stock harness is going to get me anywhere. I'm pretty sure I just wasted $156.73. Next thing is talk to my bank for some assistance.

Just thought I'd update you guys on how things are going.

 

That sucks. Do the bulbs have a label on them stating what color temp they are? I'd take pics of everything laid out so that they'd know what wires they forgot to give you. And I'd do the same for the bulbs just send them a picture of the color temp they are giving off.

You'd probably lost faith in $150 hid kits, but I've gotten mine from theretrofitsource.com and the quality is superb from my experiences. Every time I would lose a bulb clip or something they'd take care of it and even made me custom invoices for all the specific parts I needed. I'd recommend them if you wanna shot at another good hid kit.

I'd try to solve and have retro solution replace the kit first. Good luck!

 

I checked both bulbs and they have the exact same markings on them so I can only assume they are the same.
I've already taken pictures, but I don't expect them to own up and make things right.

I plan on getting a new kit, and I've already talked to theretrofitsource.com about their kit. I wish I would have went with them....