Why
H.I.D.???
At the
Retrofit Source, we know our customers – and if there’s
one thing they want, it’s the best of the best for
their rides. If that’s you, and your conventional
headlights just aren’t cutting it anymore, then you’ll
be interested in knowing some of the benefits of O.E.M.
xenon headlight retrofitting.
Here are
some facts comparing OEM HID to halogen lights.Halogen headlights
have been around for around for about 50 years now.Think of
how much cars have changed since then, an obvious sign that
halogen is outdated.
Halogen
bulbs use fragile, tungsten filaments. Think about how
much your car vibrates as it travels down the road;
this extremely thin strand of tungsten is bound to a
relatively short life.
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Example of a halogen filamnet. |
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HID
bulbs use a capsule filled with metal halide salts and
noble gasses. There is no way for this mixture to fail
due to vibration.
- Halogen
bulbs use more energy. Between 35-100 watts is drawn
from your system. This is not very efficient considering
even the highest watt halogen still isn’t as
bright as OEM HID’s are.
- OEM
HID uses only 35 watts - very efficient.
- HID
burns cooler than halogen, so in the summer you’re
lights will be happier!
- Light
spread is much better, with a wider and more evenly
lit beam.
- Quality
of the light from HID is much better:
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HID
vs. Halogen:
-
10x more light produced (Halogen: 21,000cd) (HID: 202,500cd)
- 4x brighter. (Halogen: 700-1700lu) (HID: 2400-3500lu)
- 6x longer lifespan (Halogen: 300-400 hours.) (HID:
2500-2800 hours.)
- Halogen bulbs tend to dim toward the end of their
life more than HID bulbs do.
- OEM xenon projector lighting illuminates the surface
of the road with more lifelike
tones of color, since the kelvin rating is closer to
that of the sun.
Alright
so its time to upgrade, are all HID setups created equally?
No.
OEM Retrofits vs. Aftermarket rebased HID kits. |
Click to enlarge. |
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O.E.M.
(Original Equipment Manufacturers) |
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Highly trained optical engineers working for companies
such as Hella, Automotive Lighting, Stanley, Koito,
and Valeo engineer the OEM/O.E (original equipment)
HID components that we bring you. These parts are designed
for the best light output. No other alternative surpasses
original equipment HID projector headlights in width,
light distribution, uniformity, sharpness, color, reliability,
looks, and efficiency. |
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Aftermarket: |
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Aftermarket
HID producers that make re-based kits for halogen style
headlights are the ones responsible for the bad rep
HID headlights sometimes get. I’ve got advice
- Don’t be a ricer and throw an HID rebased kit
into your car. HID kits that are rebased to fit in your
9006, h7, h4 etc. headlights actually worsen the light
output in most cases. Sure the lights might be a little
brighter lumen wise, but the actual output, (ahem the
reason why the headlights exist in the first place ahem..),
would suffer. Output would worsen because the focal
points (capsule/filament) of the two bulbs wouldn’t
match up. Thus when installed into a headlight reflector
designed for the halogen bulb specs, the HID bulb throws
light in places it shouldn’t. In the end, you
just end up blasting light into the air instead of on
the ground where it should be, which in turn blinds
oncoming drivers. |
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The
top 5 reasons not to buy a rebased HID kit are:
1) Worse output
2) Blinding to other drivers
3) Unreliability
4) Increased probability of getting
pulled over or a citation
5) With the money you wasted, you would
have been well on your way to paying for a true HID
Retrofit.
An
OE high intensity discharge projector headlight retrofit
is not really for “that guy” with the huge
aluminum spoiler and a poorly installed, unpainted body
kit. It is a modification for those who are serious
about the looks and performance of their vehicle.
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