HID Bulbs
#3
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Great Mills, MD
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Levi, converting your car from halogen bulbs to HID bulbs is not a simple "unplug this bulb and plug this bulb in". There is much, much more involved with this. Jaguar even has different headlight assemblies for halogen and HID lighting systems (the HID system is wired slightly different as it has a second ground wire). So, even if you got the Jaguar ballast and bulb (which is a style D2S bulb), the wiring in a non-HID housing will not support unless you add your own wiring.
If you are looking to convert your car over to HID in your low/dip beams, then going with an aftermarket kit is going to be your best bet. In this case, you are looking for a kit that is based around an H1 bulb. In short, you will get what you pay for. Yes, there are $30 (USD) kits on e-bay that will work great at first. But, give them a year and I can almost garantee an issue will arise and you will loose atleast one of your headlights. If you want more information about HIDs, let me know. I will go into more detail than you will probably want to know. But, atleast then you can make an educated decision on what is best for what you are after. On a side note, I won't be able to go into the local laws as to what is deemed acceptable as I am not familiar with what your laws are (I can only relate them to what is legal/acceptable in the US).
If you are looking to convert your car over to HID in your low/dip beams, then going with an aftermarket kit is going to be your best bet. In this case, you are looking for a kit that is based around an H1 bulb. In short, you will get what you pay for. Yes, there are $30 (USD) kits on e-bay that will work great at first. But, give them a year and I can almost garantee an issue will arise and you will loose atleast one of your headlights. If you want more information about HIDs, let me know. I will go into more detail than you will probably want to know. But, atleast then you can make an educated decision on what is best for what you are after. On a side note, I won't be able to go into the local laws as to what is deemed acceptable as I am not familiar with what your laws are (I can only relate them to what is legal/acceptable in the US).
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levi_mumba (04-30-2014)
#4
HID Bulbs
Levi, converting your car from halogen bulbs to HID bulbs is not a simple "unplug this bulb and plug this bulb in". There is much, much more involved with this. Jaguar even has different headlight assemblies for halogen and HID lighting systems (the HID system is wired slightly different as it has a second ground wire). So, even if you got the Jaguar ballast and bulb (which is a style D2S bulb), the wiring in a non-HID housing will not support unless you add your own wiring.
If you are looking to convert your car over to HID in your low/dip beams, then going with an aftermarket kit is going to be your best bet. In this case, you are looking for a kit that is based around an H1 bulb. In short, you will get what you pay for. Yes, there are $30 (USD) kits on e-bay that will work great at first. But, give them a year and I can almost garantee an issue will arise and you will loose atleast one of your headlights. If you want more information about HIDs, let me know. I will go into more detail than you will probably want to know. But, atleast then you can make an educated decision on what is best for what you are after. On a side note, I won't be able to go into the local laws as to what is deemed acceptable as I am not familiar with what your laws are (I can only relate them to what is legal/acceptable in the US).
If you are looking to convert your car over to HID in your low/dip beams, then going with an aftermarket kit is going to be your best bet. In this case, you are looking for a kit that is based around an H1 bulb. In short, you will get what you pay for. Yes, there are $30 (USD) kits on e-bay that will work great at first. But, give them a year and I can almost garantee an issue will arise and you will loose atleast one of your headlights. If you want more information about HIDs, let me know. I will go into more detail than you will probably want to know. But, atleast then you can make an educated decision on what is best for what you are after. On a side note, I won't be able to go into the local laws as to what is deemed acceptable as I am not familiar with what your laws are (I can only relate them to what is legal/acceptable in the US).
#5
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Great Mills, MD
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Levi, the bulbs to put into your car are based on a lot of things. I guess the first question that you have to answer is how much are you willing to spend and if you have the electrical knowledge to make HIDs work in your car. If you pay someone to do the HIDs in your car, you can probably plan on spending a lot more than you would car to spend. Where if you are good with wiring, then doing the HIDs can be done for around $70 USD and have something that is of good quality. You pay a shop to install them, you can probably plan on spending $300 USD, if not more. If you are leaning this way, I will go into much more detail about what you are looking for.
If you are looking at staying halogen (ie, conventional lighting), be weary of any bulb that is rated for over 55W. We have problems with the light plug melting with just the 55W bulb. You start using a higher wattage bulb, you are going to experience lots more problems unless you get a high wattage plug to replace the factory one with. From there, the critical thing you want to be looking for is a value known as lumen. This is a measure of light intensity at a given distance. The more lumen, the brighter the light. Please keep in mind that your local laws may govern how bright of a light that you can use. Going with a bulb like the Sylvania Silverstars or a similar bulb will net more light without drawing more power. These bulbs will also snap right into the headlight assembly with no modifications required. If you are looking at the cheapest bulb possible, you are going to end up with the least amount of light most likely. This is where spending a little bit of money is going to most likely pay off in the long run. Do some shopping around to find the best price on a given manufacturer and bulb style, but a basic bulb by a no name brand is going to be dimmer than something like the Sylvania Silverstar with the Silverstars costing much more.
If the amount of light is a major concern for you and you are needing a lot more light, then going with the HID bulbs is going to be almost a necessity as a standard halogen bulb (55W) will output around 1500 lumen of light where a 4300K HID bulb (at 35W) will output around 3300 lumen. But, like I have mentioned, you need to check with your local laws as this sort of conversion may be illegal due to the increased amount of light output.
If you are looking at staying halogen (ie, conventional lighting), be weary of any bulb that is rated for over 55W. We have problems with the light plug melting with just the 55W bulb. You start using a higher wattage bulb, you are going to experience lots more problems unless you get a high wattage plug to replace the factory one with. From there, the critical thing you want to be looking for is a value known as lumen. This is a measure of light intensity at a given distance. The more lumen, the brighter the light. Please keep in mind that your local laws may govern how bright of a light that you can use. Going with a bulb like the Sylvania Silverstars or a similar bulb will net more light without drawing more power. These bulbs will also snap right into the headlight assembly with no modifications required. If you are looking at the cheapest bulb possible, you are going to end up with the least amount of light most likely. This is where spending a little bit of money is going to most likely pay off in the long run. Do some shopping around to find the best price on a given manufacturer and bulb style, but a basic bulb by a no name brand is going to be dimmer than something like the Sylvania Silverstar with the Silverstars costing much more.
If the amount of light is a major concern for you and you are needing a lot more light, then going with the HID bulbs is going to be almost a necessity as a standard halogen bulb (55W) will output around 1500 lumen of light where a 4300K HID bulb (at 35W) will output around 3300 lumen. But, like I have mentioned, you need to check with your local laws as this sort of conversion may be illegal due to the increased amount of light output.
#6
Levi, the bulbs to put into your car are based on a lot of things. I guess the first question that you have to answer is how much are you willing to spend and if you have the electrical knowledge to make HIDs work in your car. If you pay someone to do the HIDs in your car, you can probably plan on spending a lot more than you would car to spend. Where if you are good with wiring, then doing the HIDs can be done for around $70 USD and have something that is of good quality. You pay a shop to install them, you can probably plan on spending $300 USD, if not more. If you are leaning this way, I will go into much more detail about what you are looking for.
If you are looking at staying halogen (ie, conventional lighting), be weary of any bulb that is rated for over 55W. We have problems with the light plug melting with just the 55W bulb. You start using a higher wattage bulb, you are going to experience lots more problems unless you get a high wattage plug to replace the factory one with. From there, the critical thing you want to be looking for is a value known as lumen. This is a measure of light intensity at a given distance. The more lumen, the brighter the light. Please keep in mind that your local laws may govern how bright of a light that you can use. Going with a bulb like the Sylvania Silverstars or a similar bulb will net more light without drawing more power. These bulbs will also snap right into the headlight assembly with no modifications required. If you are looking at the cheapest bulb possible, you are going to end up with the least amount of light most likely. This is where spending a little bit of money is going to most likely pay off in the long run. Do some shopping around to find the best price on a given manufacturer and bulb style, but a basic bulb by a no name brand is going to be dimmer than something like the Sylvania Silverstar with the Silverstars costing much more.
If the amount of light is a major concern for you and you are needing a lot more light, then going with the HID bulbs is going to be almost a necessity as a standard halogen bulb (55W) will output around 1500 lumen of light where a 4300K HID bulb (at 35W) will output around 3300 lumen. But, like I have mentioned, you need to check with your local laws as this sort of conversion may be illegal due to the increased amount of light output.
If you are looking at staying halogen (ie, conventional lighting), be weary of any bulb that is rated for over 55W. We have problems with the light plug melting with just the 55W bulb. You start using a higher wattage bulb, you are going to experience lots more problems unless you get a high wattage plug to replace the factory one with. From there, the critical thing you want to be looking for is a value known as lumen. This is a measure of light intensity at a given distance. The more lumen, the brighter the light. Please keep in mind that your local laws may govern how bright of a light that you can use. Going with a bulb like the Sylvania Silverstars or a similar bulb will net more light without drawing more power. These bulbs will also snap right into the headlight assembly with no modifications required. If you are looking at the cheapest bulb possible, you are going to end up with the least amount of light most likely. This is where spending a little bit of money is going to most likely pay off in the long run. Do some shopping around to find the best price on a given manufacturer and bulb style, but a basic bulb by a no name brand is going to be dimmer than something like the Sylvania Silverstar with the Silverstars costing much more.
If the amount of light is a major concern for you and you are needing a lot more light, then going with the HID bulbs is going to be almost a necessity as a standard halogen bulb (55W) will output around 1500 lumen of light where a 4300K HID bulb (at 35W) will output around 3300 lumen. But, like I have mentioned, you need to check with your local laws as this sort of conversion may be illegal due to the increased amount of light output.
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