LED Headlights Vs HID?
 

Hi Guys!

I am new at this forum. First of all, I want to tell you that I am a single parent and bought a used car last year. I am not good at handling technical issues of my vehicle. Mostly, I act upon the advice of a mechanic, but now, I came here to ask a question. Actually, I want to replace my headlights due to lousy performance. As it could be a significant risk for me, that's why I decided to place LED lights.

However, my office colleague Johns suggested me that I should install an HID Kit ( https://bestazy.com/best-hid-kit/ ) to get shiny and bright lights. I am just confused that what should I do.

Please come with serious and feasible recommendations. You can also share other suggestion if you have.

If you are in Berlin wouldn't the EU army bust your ass for installing an aftermarket HID kit into Halogen housings and without headlight washers? :paddle:

If you are referring to the headlights in a GT86, I would suggest that you just leave them alone (assuming the lens cover isn't fogged over, and they are working properly).

Why? Because their ain't nothing wrong with them. Just don't outdrive your car's headlights.

See, my theory is that one will drive at night as fast and far as one can see ahead.

I suggest that you just keep your eyes focused on the road and one ear tuned into the back seat on the child's frequency.

It's sort of like passing on a two lane road, the more power your car has, the shorter distance you will try to pass in.

pa-pa has spoke - ;)

There are so many things you could do to upgrade your lighting. I have no idea what is legal in your country.


Additionally, since you are a single parent, I assume that you are on some sort of budget. I would get LED replacement bulbs for your current headlights. (and if needed; a headlight restore kit) If your headlights are hazy or scratched; a restore kit can fix them. This should be the most cost effective way to get what you want (LED or HID) and upgrade/fix your headlights.


HID is great if the headlight housing is compatible with this type of bulb. They are also a bit harder to install. They have a ballast that has to be mounted and wired in. Some HID kits are plug-and-play, though the ballast would still need mounted.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KbZBgrEk_w"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KbZBgrEk_w[/ame]

I hope that this helps!

Just swapped my stock halogens out a couple days ago for these:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
About $65 for both the high and low beams and it's multiple times brighter than the stock setup.
HID may indeed be brighter but I'm not trying to spot something 1/4 mile away and/or blind anybody.
It looks like the links for the HID kits above are just for low beams and those are all roughly $90.
On a budget, just get the LED stuff. Really don't even need the high beam ones for 99% of driving too.
And if you leave the stock high beams in, you will also retain your DRL.
Swapping a LED bulb in high beams will not dim down for DRL use so, you have to disable the DRL .

Your headlight housings aren't designed for HID nor for LED bulbs. You will get uneven coverage and quite likely will end up seeing less overall. You can replace the halogens in the high beams with brighter halogens. This will give you brighter brights and the same coverage while not causing any issues with blinding with the low beams on.

Now if you replace the entire housings with well-designed ones meant for HID or LED, you'll be fine. However, I doubt most people know what good light looks like, and I know that designing these well is extremely difficult. Just look at the IIHS's reviews of headlights to see how, even for OEMs, the designs are difficult to get right.

Also European headlights are different from American. Different laws. Different bulbs.

Thanks for sharing your views. I have to talk mechanic whether he can install LED in reasonable cost. I am also planning to upgrade the current lights and kit.

But I know every single person that would do this sort of mod improperly and illegally are ricers.

What is a ricer again? Is it an anti-Asian thing or just a term for people who buy and modify Asian cars?

I must be a ricer... I have Acura HIDs retrofitted into my FR-S high beams. (I had them laying around) :popcorn:

This is correct. Keeping this in mind xenon bulbs will give you much better light output than an LED, since the light source is closer in shape to a halogen bulb.

Halogen bulbs emit light from the filament, so the light source is a small line
Xenon bulbs use a gas chamber, which acts almost like a point source.
An LED bulb lights up an entire diode, which is much bigger than either the halogen or xenon light source.

That means your projector cannot focus the light from an LED well at all, and you'll have a crappy cutoff line and plenty of hotspots above and below it. Xenon bulbs will focus a tiny bit fuzzier than the halogens but they won't scatter since they have the smallest light source of the 3. The pattern itself won't be ideal but it'll be close, especially cause it's not a simple reflector bowl. Most halogen projectors do quite well with a Xenon bulb inside.

That coupled with the typical light output of each type makes the Xenon your best bet for an upgrade.

typical output values:

35 watt Halogen: 1500 lumen
$100 led low beam bulbs: 2400 lumen (the $30 ones are much worse)
35 watt xenon bulbs: 3400 lumen (depends on the color, 4500k-5000k are brightest)

You can get a lot of brightness up close, but how is the throw going to be? And will the brightness up close make the light farther out harder to see?

It really depends on the projector.

it seems that the FR-S projector does quite well:

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9116

there's a portion of light above the cutoff line due to the 'squirrel finder' tabs, but those can be bent down to get rid of them. Definitely should be done to not blind oncoming traffic.

http://i47.tinypic.com/zilsgo.jpg