Greetings Lexonians:

I have replaced the front cornering bulbs with LEDs on my '05 ES-330. I was thinking that it would be nice to upgrade the DRLs from the factory yellowish tint to white.

Do I understand correctly that the DRLs are actually the high beam bulbs running at half power? Wondering if anyone has upgraded those bulbs to Xenon or such.

Also I believe I have the standard projection-style low beams. Likewise, wondering about upgrading those as well. Does this upgrade require special adapters to go to HID?

Thanks in advance for the info!

 

Last time i tried upgrading the drl/high beams to hid i needed the full HID kit. {bulbs and ballast}.It worked fine when high beams are on, but when running DRL the voltage wasnt enough to power the ballast.so light remained off. In short you will have to sacrifice your DRL to using HIDs for your high beams.(twas on an es300 2003)

 

The above is correct. Plus putting hids in your hi beams is pointless because the light output is pretty much the same.

 

So based on the comments, that does not seem like a worthwhile trade-off. I rarely ever use high beams and do not want to sacrifice the DRLs.

Thanks guys!

 

@Pinpoint1,

You can install HIDs in your High Beams/DRLs, and still have both functions, if you install a canbus fix along with them (like our PWM anti-flicker modules). The reality of the situation, however, is that the HIDs are going to run at full intensity in either mode, so it would be like driving around with your High Beams on all the time. Also, HIDs have a bit of a warm-up period to them - more noticeable/lengthy off of a cold start, but always present - that makes them less than ideal for use in High Beams, where you usually just need that quick flash of light.

The same "on all the time" issue would apply if you went with LED replacements with a canbus fix in place, so if you want to keep the separate brightness levels for your High Beams and DRLs you're stuck with Halogens for the time being, but you could get some nice ones to give you brighter/whiter light than the stock bulbs.

~Robert