HID lights

If you strip them from a Junkyard, it shouldn't be a lot ($250-300?)

If you're installing from scratch, expect to pay $600 or so for the parts. There are aftermarket HID changeovers that start about $550 up. Since it's an entirely different technology, you have to install the hi-voltage unit as well as the lighting itself.

There was a good article on HID on the web a couple years ago. Google it to get the background info you will need and then do some shopping.

Sorry for top-posting...using Outhouse Express today! :)

Not very complicated. Swap the headlamp assemblies, connect the plugs that used to go to your low beam bulbs to the new lamps' ballasts, aim the lamps carefully per

Can get a good reading on this via

DS

...and are dangerous, illegal and ineffective.

Well, yes. You don't want to just shove an HID capsule into your regular headlight.

But there are aftermarket retrofits that take all this into account. I have older cars that use sealed beams, and when you replace the headlight, you replace the entire unit. There are retrofit kits for there that provide a properly configured lens/reflector.

Shop carefully; many of them are garbage at best, dangerous at worst.

Thanks for the info.

Thanks DS.

I will stay away from the aftermarket type. I've seen how bad some of them look. Here in the country, these should help a lot more.

Ken

The only retrofit like that which *I* am aware of is a steaming pile of.... stuff. Costs hundreds, and isn't as good as a $12 sealed beam.

Yeah, I was tempted. There is a high-end parts store near me that has *real* Sylvania and Philips crossover kits, not pieces slapped together by someone in Indonesia. $699, look like a good kit, but I was working at CarQuest at the time and bought some off the shelf replacement bulbs, I think they were Sylvania Xenons, PLENTY of light! $6.99 with my employee discount (they WEREN'T SilverStars...)

Bzzzt! That Sylvania Xenarc kit was made, believe it or not, by a trinketmaker in a basement workshop in Taiwan. He had marginal ability to design an functional glovebox light, let alone a headlamp, but his North American representative put together a slick enough presentation that Sylvania took the bait. Performance was significantly worse than even a $7 non-halogen sealed beam. Durability was the pits (lens turned yellow and frosty and/or fell off the reflector in under a year). Sylvania had hoped to use that product to increase market awareness and acceptance of HID headlamps in North America, because it was (and is) lagging behind Europe. The effort backfired very badly because of the crap quality and performance; Sylvania quietly discontinued them and remaindered them off at firesale prices to a guy out West who is currently hyping them up on his website, claiming they are "generation 2" units, whatever that's supposed to mean (nothing).

Remember, just because there's a name on the (fancy, expensive) box that you recognise, does NOT mean it's necessarily a good product.

The packaging was very slick, for sure. If the same amount of thought, engineering and design had gone into the lamps inside, they might've been worth a toss.

You bought Sylvania Xtravisions, one of the last honest products left in Sylvania's line.

As for Silverstars: Remember, just because there's a name on the (fancy, expensive) box that you recognise, does NOT mean it's necessarily a good product.

DS

And a premium price to boot.

No, I'm not often taken in by ads, packaging or bling! I like the Xtravisions just fine!

Forget about HID and just pop in a set of 9011 and 9012 bulbs.

Richard.