They won't look ricey if you stay with "stock" colors, say 4300k-5000k, maybe 6000k. If you get 8000k, they'll still look "ricey" with a retrofit.

 

Kits are ricey. BMW, Audi, Acura, Mercedes, Cadillac don't use HID kits. The kits that you are referring to are plug and play. They are using stock halogen reflectors with a bulb that isn't meant for that application. HID reflectors, like the ones in the early Acura TL, used a D2R bulb (which had a thin black strip on the bottom of the bulb to prevent light from bouncing back up at oncoming drivers). The cutoff was defined like: ___/__/ (or \__\___ for RHD countries). With advances, all the makers, AFAIK, have switched over to D2S bulbs, which are meant for projector applications, not reflectors. The cutoff with these projectors look like: __/--/--- (or ---\--\__ for RHD countries).

There are differences in the beam patterns between halogen and REAL HID's. Halogens are fairly low powered. They give off less light, usually between 1300 and 1900 lumens. Because they are limited in the amount of light they give off, they need to be restricted in width to be useful. Therefore, halogens are fairly narrow. On the other hand, HID's have an abundance of light. HID's give off 3200 to 3400 lumens, at around the 4300K colour temperature. Because of this, HID's are designed to be very wide and far reaching. The downside of all this light, is the danger of glare to oncoming drivers. That is why the cutoffs are so well defined. The lower cutoff is on the left so that oncoming drivers are not blinded by your bright headlights.

Because HID's only have 1 brightness, if a person is to go beneath the cutoff, it is like being flashed with your high beams. HID's, unlike halogens, don't rely on 2 separate coils to energise and emit light. There is one brightness and one brightness only. HID projectors are designed so that a shield drops out from the bottom when the high beams are activated. This removes the cutoff and allows all the light to escape.

HID kits are cheap imitators. It doesn't matter what you paid for them, they aren't the real thing. You have halogen bulbs with Xenon gas in them and then you have cheap HID kits that have taken a bulb and changed the shape of the base to fit in other applications. There is no quality control in the making of these bulbs, though. The focal point is entirely different from that of a halogen bulb. In a halogen bulb, the coil runs up and down or right to left. In a Xenon bulb, however, the arc runs from front to back.

HID kits are not retro kits, they are plug'n'play. A retrofit kit consists of projectors, shrouds, ballasts, D2S bulbs and a harness. It involves opening your headlights and cutting out part of the reflector to make the projector sit in there level. Then you need to align and seal the headlights back up. It is more expensive ($300 DIY to $1200 if you have another person do it for you) and time consuming (a first time retrofitter can usually do it in a day or two), but the results are far better than any kit can provide. You won't be blinding every other driver on the road and you have the confidence in knowing you have a completely unique look to your vehicle, along with performance that rivals BMW and other higher end cars.

Again, back to one of my favourite pictures of a retrofit (click for larger picture):



Those red lights are his tail lights (a Lincoln LS retrofitted with Lexus LS460 projectors). The full article is over at HIDPlanet. Feel free to post pictures of your HID kit in halogen reflector "cutoff". That picture was taken approximately 500' back and 50' up a gravel pit.

Actually: WORLD'S FIRST LED HEADLIGHTS: News from Audi, and I believe Cadillac is playing with it on their high end SUV model.

 

all hail the HID god! i'm kidding, good post. very informative.

at first i thought you were supporting halogen over HID but i get what you are saying now. i also understand the difference, i can pick out kits installed on cars very easily than factory HID.

i guess we can only hope that more cars come standard with HID and someone hit the fast forward button on those LED heads. i have my eye on a 4ft vision X led light bar to replace 4- 8in halogens hellas on the front of my truck in the near future.

i will run my "fake" HID's in every car i own unless they come with them or until Rosco writes me a ticket.
far as xenon link kits, i still love my kit and i will be purchasing a kit for my motorcycle this summer.

that website, great resource

that pic, ridiculous

 

Lol, I agree. I can pick out the cars with fake kits easily. Don't take my "anti-kit" stance personally. I was fooled by kit makers to spend almost $250 CAD and buy a kit, back in December. A week later and I was sick of the overly blue colour and the hotspots in the light. I started actually researching HID's and found HIDPlanet. Since then, I have been very vocal in my distaste for the HID kit providers. They are generally dishonest and take advantage of people who don't know better. If you've researched both sides and still decide to go the kit direction, all the power to you. In most cases, though, that isn't what happened. As in my case, I believed that the kit would give me the output and look of an Acura, etc, and paid my hard earned money to buy their product. I found out, shortly thereafter, that what I had paid for looked nothing like the OEM applications. Since then, HID kits stand out all over the place (just like F150's stand out).

Kind of like the guy who believes that, since his 8,000K headlights aren't very bright, that he can fix them with 10,000K headlights. *Sigh* I sure as hell don't know everything about HID's, but I'm continuing to learn and hate to see good people taken advantage of. I'm just trying to save people the headache of getting something they don't want.

 

i just want to say, for others reading this, XenonLink's kits are great IMO. Awesome customer service and a very easy install.

are they exactly like OEM-HID? NO
are they superior to your silver stars or stock halogens? YES
are they legal at all? NO

my XenonLink HID's are a awesome upgrade if you are not expecting a OEM-HID. I also run 6000k with the stock aiming. I have been through road blocks and radar traps. never got a rise out of Rosco. I also have never been flashed.

what someone needs to do is make a true projector, plug and play REAL HID kit. when it comes to electrical, people will pay for plug and play.

 

That post, I can respect. At least you're honest.

Problems with projectors, you can't just shove them through the hole in the back of the headlight. The hole is kind of small and well, it just doesn't fit (we're talking headlights here, people, focus). The companies out there that offer retrofitting services, don't sell them cheap. The final product can run up as high as $1500. If you have the money, then they are experienced and can do the job right. They'll even warranty it for a set time period, in most cases. It isn't that hard, though, and most people should be able to do a retrofit on their own. It's just time consuming, that's all.

 

Just because we run HID kits doesnt mean we are like almost every other small import car on the road with 10k kits that are shining up straight at the oncoming driver.

Your post was very informative for people that are at 0 and im sorry to hear you got shafted a while back but there isnt really a need to be so vocal at bashing the HID kit users or perhaps future users as long as you can guide them to use themwisely.

Most of us (from what i have read here on the forums) are aware of the amount of light shot towards the oncoming driver. We have learned to aim our lights so this is minimized. And when someone doesnt know we all usually jump on them and give them the info they need to put the excess light they now have in a spot that wont blind everyone.
And although our reflector based lights will never have a cutoff as well as a projector it is a great upgrade when someone does it consciously. For example, staying below the 6k temps, using better reflectors such as the hellas or lightning housings and not the crap $99 ebay junk, and being respectful of other drivers. Most with HIDs that post up here are first bombarded with questions about aiming them a bit lower. We dont want the general public to associate F150 drivers with being in the annoying blue/ purple headlight blinding category.

The main problem with retrofitting projectors in our trucks is the massive real-estate that the headlight housing uses. A small 2.5 - 3" projector looks weird in there, and there is still the lack of room to the rear of the actual headlight. It requires extensive modification (as you have read in dukes write-up) which most people wont want to do or pay 1200 dollars for.
There are the possibilities of retrofitting a cheapo weird "hid projector type" of housing you see off of ebay since they are already somewhat designed to have the projector look. Your not starting with a solid point IMO becaouse you are essentially putting high end projectors into a cheaply made housing. The housings usually dont fit well, cant be adjusted and are just general junk. Reminds me of the people that run $6-10k wheels on a $1500 mid seventies caprice...
And the bottom line is when its all done, you still look like you have cheap projector headlight assemblies when the light is off.

While i will agree that a retrofit is the way to go, its just very difficult on our particular choice of victim, the f150s.

 

I see there being a need to be vocal. There are thousands of users on this board and very very few of them say anything bad about kits. Everyone says simply "That looks sick!" or "That's badass!" and so on and so forth. There needs to be an opposing point of view so that people can make up their minds on information and not just the emotional response of "I want them to say that about my truck!". Most people shop on the emotional responses. I'm not being overly harsh and I'm not attacking people who have done it. More often than not, my target is the companies that market these products without being entirely truthful.

Unfortunately, they already have been associated with that category. Anybody who's anybody has a rig rocket which has a 6000K kit in it and some dangly plastic ********* hanging of their hitch. I don't think I've seen any trucks (with kits) that are less than 6000K. People associate the colour with the prism effect they see from OEM HID's.

If you need to fill the whole space, you can always go with an LS460 projector. Although the bi-xenon versions are very rare and only really available in one of the Asian countries. You have the space, though, to throw in an Acura TL projector and have one of the favourite cut offs and outputs of any vehicle. Add a vacuum formed or other shroud and it looks far better than anything sold on eBay, with the performance to match.

Like I said, I'm not attacking people. If you've done your research and have decided to go with a kit, all the power to you. I'm just trying to say that there is another side to HID's, aside from kits, and if you have the time to do it, a full retrofit is the way to go and can provide you with amazing results.

Not my truck, but:




I don't think that looks cheap.

 

I completely agree, i have done plenty of research and have often thought about doing a retrofit myself. Like i said though its the appearance part of it that i dont like. I am all about function and form. Not just form or just function.
The retrofits just dont look right to me, and you have said yourself that in order to fill out the entire area you are looking at parts that are very scarce to find here in the states let alone the cost of them.

There is a wealth of knowledge here on the forum as well as the internet and on any other car with smaller headlamps i would have to say that a retrofit is the only way to go. Its just a very difficult task to pull off and make it look OEM on our vehicles. I have even gone as far as researching the headlamps on the previous gen lincoln navigators which came with HIDs from the factory in a reflective housing. Ive thought about fitting those reflective elements into the 04-08 housings but the problem is the loss of the high beams, which is pretty much illegal. Most states require you to have a high and low beam.
It is just honestly quite a hassle to come up with the funding, procure all the parts, and do intensive testing in and out of the vehicle to get everything right, although if i ever do it im sure ill be pleased with the results.

Great debate here though, this is the perfect place for people to see it and learn more about xenon lighting and its various ways of use.

 

Agreed. I am in the process of looking for some Harley or Hella heads (and coming up with the cash for them). 2 kids does not bode well for my money situation. So don't hold your breath for me to finish. In time, though ...

 

Just left you a voice message. I'll need the failed parts back to get it replaced. Let's talk first so I would better understand on the issue. Don't worry I'll get your fogs up and running shortly.

 

Hope you all had a great weekend. After more than 2 weeks of the pre-summer promo only 2 members has signed up. Due to the low volume of demand I won't be able to offer the pre-summer promo pricing. I will be contacting those who had signed up for the promo kits.

 

i just purchased a motorcycle kit for my bike from xenon link

my hid's in my truck are still great, lighting every time. i expect the same with my moto kit.

 

Ive read through this thread for the most part and I see several people complaining about the kit not working properly. Do you guys suggest going with another brand. Also, I see there was a group buy offered for a whole 12 days! Guess I missed that one.

 

-----keep in mind each truck is different( years) so some may take a little trial and error. also keep in mind its liek any other accessory, if it was not produced by ford then it may take a little extra work to get it right. i love mine and i dont expect any less for my motorcycle kit.