franbev

I'd like to upgrade the low beam lighting on our '02 ES 300. Any recommendations on which of the many available HID brands is best? Is it just a different bulb or is there a transformer needed to switch to HID?

WILLYumD

To upgrade to HID from a halogen setup, you will need quite a bit.

You have to open the headlight housing (common method is to heat the housing in an oven) and then affix an HID projector into the headlight, then reseal the housing.

Then you need an igniter and ballast to light the HID bulb.

Sure, you could just get the ballast/igniter and shove the bulb into your headlight, but without the projector you will NOT have a good light pattern. Meaning you will be blinding oncomin drivers and have an unsafe projection of light onto the road.

A reputable source of HID components is The Retrofit Source. They'll likely have a 25% off sale for Black Friday.

jaredmac11

Im curious about the OEM housing and HID. I put HID in my car and trailed my wife asking if they were obnoxious and she said they were not. I did ensure to re-calibrate where they pointed after installation, however.

jo8594

Drive to some flat ground 25 feet away from a wall at night. Measure distance from the ground to the center of your headlights and mark that on the wall. Shine your headlights on the wall. If you have any light above that mark anywhere your light hits, you are leaking light and it will bother other drivers to the left, right, up the road, etc.

mugencivic

The only recommendation I personally have is to get bulb temp between 4300K - 5K, anything higher than that defeats the purpose of HID's. I had 6K on my wife's car and could see at night, then changed the bulb to 5K and was able to see a lot better. I'm thinking of going a bit lower for more brightness.

jaredmac11

Another recommendation, thought-- if you go cheap, you can expect the ballast to go back in a year or less... like I've found for myself.