Looking around, I'm wondering if some HID installers could answer some doubts before I make a purchase. 1) How different are 5k/6k lights? I like the white of 5k but also wonder if the 6k's bluish tint makes it look classy. 2) Are all HIDs the same? I see $125 for coolbulbs and there's some $50 on ebay. They all seem to be digital ballasts with plug/play and all. 3) Being as to how some units are plug/play and granted they're H11, would they all fit properly? I read a post somewhere that someone had to shave off the headlight (might not have been in PC) to make it fit right. Any sites you recommend? I've look at coolbulbs mainly. BTW, I have a silver w/o fogs if it makes a difference in picturing how it'd look.
Are you sure the optics will work? If the light source is not in exactly the same place they will not work right.
1) Can't help you too much here as I went with 4300k bulbs. They offer the most light output and in my opinion look the best. How many supercars do you see with blue tinted headlights and how many piles do you see with them? 2) ALL HID KITS ARE NOT THE SAME. I bought a cheap kit through XenonEmpire.com and even though I bought a 4300k kit the light seemed very blue around all edges and the beam pattern was weird. Shortly after that one of the bulbs died. I contacted them for warranty replacement of the bulb but that was the last I ever heard from them. At that point I was very turned off to aftermarket hid's and removed the kit. I contacted another website that I heard good thongs about ( kbcarstuff.com ) and described my problems. They said that they hear complaints from people goig with cheap kits all the time but not from their kits. I decided to give it a shot and got one of their 4300k kits. I was blown away at Joe much better their kit produced light. From the outside the kits don't loook much different but the light is now pure white and has an even beam pattern. I'm VERY happy with this kit. 3) Both kits I received were plug and play and did not require any modification besides installing the wire harness. I would not suggest installing a kit without a wire harness.
1. 5000K should be whiter than 6000K (which will have a more noticeable bluish tint compared to 5000K and definitely noticeable compared to 4300K). I went with 5000K. 2. They're not all the same. You get what you pay for. 3. No mod required on the Prius AFAIK.
I would recommend anything that is in the "bright white" range as far as color. I have that darker gray color and that's how I went. I've had other ones in the past, and the white are by far the brightest on the road. The kit I ordered (I can't remember where from, though) didn't have an actual plug on the wires, rather just a wire connector for each wire. Pretty cheap IMO so try to make sure they atleast have a real connector at the end. I'm sure I could buy one and rig the wires into it, but I don't really feel like doing that. I just wrap them up in several layers of electrical tape. My next upgrade will be HIR bulbs for the high beams. Supposedly they are between the Halogen & HID in brightness and are a direct replacement for Halogen. They will give me the same (or close) white color of the HIDs. One of the solder points was broken though on the bulbs I got, so I had to send it back and they just mailed me out a replacement bulb.
Thanks for clarifying that. I've done some comparison online and think I'd go with 5k myself. So, if the bulb goes bad, you just replace it right? I'm assuming you can also replace it with a different K-rated bulb to say go to 4300K or else? Ok, I went cheap and got a $43 digital-ballast kit from eBay. A friend mentioned buying a similar cheap kit from a different site and mentioned how well it's been running. I did some online reviews and a few people mention testing them and how they lasted through selling the car and so on. I figured it was worth testing, and if it doesn't work, I'll go with a more expensive kit.
I bought the Xtreme Digital HID Conversion Kit from KBCarstuff. Customer service is top notch. They will answer questions by phone or email quickly. I bought the 4500k kit and the lights are very white (compared to most cars on the road) and they are the brightest of the kits. HID Conversion Kits | HID Kits | HID Replacement Bulbs
i had an ebay set, o-nex hid's which were very very similar to many of the other ebay bulbs. they had a plastic base, which was not easy to fit into the projector, and the "hot spot" of the bulb was off on one side. to make matters worse, it only had 2 prongs to for the existing headlight harness power/ground. i recently got a new kit from ddm tuning with the right angle bulbs and metal base just like the oem bulbs. also it had the proper adaptors and sealing for the existing headlight harness. i used a relay, but the kit would fit properly without the relay as well. i attached some pics for comparison, and by far the ddm kit was the best. i went through about 4 sets before i settled on ddm and realized i should have gotten these from the start. the pics show 2 pics of the ddm bulb and 2 pics of the cheapo ebay bulb/kit. the ebay kit had the rubber plastic washer that was on backwards and didnt fit properly, and the ddm kit had a rubber washer that fit very well. hot spot on both were much better than the ebay bulbs also. one thing to hot, i liked how the ddm bulbs were kept in place with the heat resistant foam vs the epoxy that could just melt and fall back into the projector
