HID's and bulb warnings

[gadgetman]

Mainly for looks

I find the output is great and a MAHOOSIVE improvement over the standard bulbs

You'll be amazed then with some 4.5k's

[cheezemonkhai]

I'm fairly certain these will be going back and standard (+30%/+50%) bulbs going in.

They are indeed much brighter, but there is a dark "line" in my direct field of vision and one of the bulbs vibrates on a rough road surface even though I've checked the fitting.

The other thing is that when I went for a drive nobody slowed or flashed me with the exception of two old cars on pitch black country roads.

Of these one almost stopped and the other flashed me, suggesting that they are too bright for other users. I did have the beam pattern checked at an MOT place and it's spot on, so it's not an alignment issue.

I really just think they are too bright for other road users, as when I put the 100W main beam on this made no difference except to the far distance and higher areas.

As such I'm not convinced on the safety for other road users and don't want to cause somebody to either crash into me or off the road.

If I want HID lighting, I think I'll just have to wait until I can afford to buy a car with it from the factory.

Another point I will raise is that because the light is so bright, where you can usually see outlines of objects outside of your direct beams, with these you can see nothing as your eyes are obviously opening up to deal with the extreme brightness.

It's a shame, but unless there is an easy solution I'm missing I can't see it being worth the risk of blinding other users.

[vRS Carl]

Hmmm

You need to see my car then or Harry's while they are driving towards you. I can assure you that in my car they are definately not too bright for anybody. As i have already said nobody has ever flashed me on any type of road at any time of day. Even the police haven't batted and eyelid.

The whole point of HID is that they are far brighter (approx 2.5 - 3 times) than normal 55w halogens.

As for not seeing things outside your beam pattern i can't understand your point. Your eye will not open to deal with brightness they will close. Also unless the light is shining directly at you then you wouldn't notice a change in the shape of your iris if you were to monitor it.

The dark line you talk about. The only thing i can assume is that you have got the Anti-Glare bulbs with are meant for reflector headlights not projector headlights. Do the bulbs have a black strip along them or are they just glass all round? If they have the black strip they are the Anti-Glare ones.

Don't take this post as me having a pop. Im not your just the first person i have ever heard say they are bad.

Just one last thing. What car have you got? I have always assumed you have a MK2 Octavia but just checking. I know some people have reported bad things about Cars with reflector style headlights. But i havent heard anyone say they are bad in Projector style lamps and i know at least 10 different people with the HIDS4U lights.

Carl:thumbup:

[cheezemonkhai]

Yes it's a MK II.

The bulbs are the projector lens items and don't have the anti-glare covers.

Regarding the eye opening, yep my bad I typed it the wrong way around.

I guess my major concern is that running the 5k bulbs (closest to OEM colour and also the brightest available in the kit) then I must have obviously been putting out too much light if one car slowed right down and the other flashed me on an unlit road.

No problems at all on lit roads, DC or motorways and the lighting for me was great. Really really good. However it's other people having issues, and just that my eyes do get that light reflected off the road and so picking out dark items is harder and that small dark patch was a concern.

So yes I could see wonderfully, but at least one of the other drivers on the road couldn't.

[vRS Carl]

Well if you had them checked at an MOT place then they are obviously fine.

I sometimes got flashed with my last car (an Ex police Omega) that had xenon lights. Depending on the nature of the road if for example you were going around a Left hand bend, Or uphill slightly then people sometimes (incorrectly) assume you have main beams on and flash.

But having said that i have never been flashed in my Octy with the Kit in so maybe you just got a couple of twonks coming towards you who flashed for no reason.

Or they Knew you and were saying hi :P

Or they thought " now that HID upgrade kit looks fantastic and im going to show my appreciation by flashing and stopping " :D:D

Carl:thumbup:

[cheezemonkhai]

Well second opinion on alignment from an second MOT centre said "Spot on or maybe marginally low, but certainly doesn't need adjustment".

Guy said they would happily issue an MOT with the lights as they are.

Muchos confused on what to do now. The fact that the guy had to stop obviously suggests that they lights are too bright for some.

[psycholist]

If it was a narrow road he may have just pulled in to let you past with a bigger margin of error. If this happened all the time or you were getting flashed regularly, then I'd get worried about the setup. He may have pulled over for an unrelated reason like to answer his phone...

I did give a friend of mine some abuse recently when he mentioned he was swapping his car back from the HiD's he'd been using for the last year or two because the car was due its NCT (Irish MOT). He reckoned there was too much scatter on the beams to pass but he was still quite happy driving with that setup on the road. His car has older style reflector rather than projector lights which are known to be unsuitable for HiDs though. From what I've seen in pictures here, projector lights control the beam pattern whether incandescent or HiD bulbs are used.

[Jabbasport]

Answering the VAG-COM question, we had a octavia vrs mk2 here that had HID's fitted and bought up a bulb warning.

When in long coding on central convinience i think it was you could choose the option to say it had factory Xenons fitted. Bulb warning went out, lights worked and even showed a warning when the hid ballast failed..

Kev

[cheezemonkhai]

Going to take the car for another drive this evening to see what is what, but I'm 99.9% certain they are going to go back.

[gadgetman]

Xenons do have a sharp cut off point which is akin to a brown/black line.

Most drivers will flash anything that looks too bright, I simply ignore them as I've had them checked that much I KNOW they are 100% correct.

[cheezemonkhai]

Well the HID's are out and have gone back. Something just wasn't right and while only 1 person flashed me last night that was 1 too many.

Again it was on an unlit country road, which suggests that they really are just too bright for some of the other road users under these conditions.

Since I spend a lot of time on these roads, I've gone for a set of +50% osram silverstars in the dipped beam, which lasted a long time when I last had them.

I'm hoping I won't have an OMG what have I done moment next time I'm out on the dark roads, but I guess time will tell.

I have to give HIDS4U a thumbs up here as they took the kit back no questions asked and then magically became autobulbsdirect to supply replacement halogen bulbs. (Same company and office).

I'll be able to give feedback later as I have a fair amount of night driving to do over the weekend.

[gadgetman]

Problem is that one person might not do that much night driving so most modern cars lights, even halogens, are too bight.

Have tried upgraded halogens, and compared to xenons are pants. I wish I could have them on the works car, as after driving ours it really is a case of 'who turned out the lights'!

[Tomo1971]

I get people flashing me on narrow roads and I have the standard bulbs in!!

Alignment is OK, no weight in the car,other than my fat backside and they still flash.

Can only think its the angle im coming at them from.

Steve

[gregozedobe]

I've tried a few different globes in my T5 and Octy. The best H7 globes (Octy Lo beam) I've found were Osram Rallye 65W (H9 burner on a H7 base, currently seem a bit hard to source), the best H1 globes (Octy Hi beam) I've found were Philips X-treme 55W (readily available from lots of places). Anything with higher wattage (100W and up) may cause problems with the wiring and/or the reflector surface (too much heat).

[Stoofa]

Are you sure that the Osram Rallye 65W are road legal?

I was 99% sure these are for off-road use only.

[milnei]

cheezemonkhai , Seems like you've made up your mind already, and it's a shame that you're not convinced with the HIDs you fitted.:confused:

You asked last week what HID kit I had and I looked on the box bit they seem to be a no name Chinese kit. They were supplied by JAM Performance on ebay, however they are no longer a registered user after some problems in March. I bought the kit last August and they were faultless on my Mazda 6 for 8 months and give me no problems on my Octy.

Some may flash you if the bulb temp is too blue. Standard OEM xenon temp is around 3500k to 4000k. My first bulbs were 5k and they were a little too blue for my liking so i swapped them for 4.3k and they are great. I never get flashed but I do put the leveller to setting 1 when on single lane roads but on DCs and Motorways level 0 gives decent range with no issues.

They are 35w but don't give bulb failure warning, however I wouldn't mind betting that if you tested 10 35w kits from different manufacturers you get a range of current draws, some low enough to trigger the bulb failure system and some high enough not to.

Anyways, you've made your choice and I hope you're happy with them.

[cheezemonkhai]

The HID temperature I went for was 5000 Kelvin, which is very much a white light and as close to OEM as you can easily get from this manufacturer.

I'm now fairly convinced the flashing is due to the rough and uneven road surfaces causing the car to jiggle or slant and cause nasty light effects. I got somebody to drive off ahead of me as I followed and then got them to drive off and come back towards me with the lights on.

To summarise the HIDs really do IMHO *need* both projectors and the levelling to counteract the road angles, because they just are that bright.

HTH