I am pretty sure that the replacement LED lamp assembly required the original wire spring clip retainer to lock the lamp in place. But all is not lost, you can make a new wire clip yourself. The hardest part will be finding the spring wire. If you have a local hobby shop that caters to remote controlled aircraft builders, they should have assortments of straight pieces of stiff spring wire. They are used for struts and linkages. Just get the correct diameter wire and bend yourself a new one, using the one from the other headlamp as a pattern. Get some extra pieces of wire because the first one you bend will probably be pretty ugly, LOL. Other sources for the straight spring wire are ebay and http://www.mcmaster.com (which has everything!). Good luck!
RC people use a lot of "piano wire" that comes in different diameters although it is not spring wire but may do in a pinch. Search "Piano Wire".
Thank you so much for the thread, write-up, pics, and feedback from other members! I'm sorry i don't have pics of my own to share. Recently, I had an HID go out, and decided I wanted to go to LED, if possible. Reading through the LED threads and seeing the same ambiguity from vendors the OP noted, I was discouraged. This thread gave me the confidence I needed to just go for it. Similarly to the OP, I got a fanless, passively-cooled LED kit. Mine was from Amazon, rather than eBay. Otherwise, my replacement and satisfaction has been substantially similar. One difference is that I found that the red slide-on connectors were too small, so I used the blue ones, which seem to be working fine. As for the FM radio interference, I'm afraid that remains an open question, as I still have not gotten around to resolving all the issues I reported earlier in this thread about the DOME fuse, therefore cannot test
I am happy to hear that your conversion went well also.It will be nice when a vendor supplies a conversion kit that includes a DC to DC convertor that doesn't cause FM interference. Good work! Lloyd
Could you please share a link to the product you purchased? Bet it would help others in picking though the various options that are available.
Here it is. And at fifty bucks delivered, it was half as much to change both to LED as it would have been to purchase just ONE replacement at my local Advance or Autozone
How do low and high beams work in this retrofit setup? Just two wires? I recall the old school filament bulbs having three wires (two filaments) in order to facilitate high and low beam.
Correct, te HID (now LED) setup only has 2 wires going to the bulb, so it is either on or off. The Hi and low beam is handled by a mechanical shield thru another connector on the headlight assembly. A solenoid moves a mechanical shield to cover and uncover part of the bulb to provide the hi-low effect. It works the same with the LED as it did with the HID.
The original seller doesn't seem to have the fanless bulbs anymore. I found another seller with fanless, the ballast is built INTO the heatsink, so hopefully won't have the radio interference, but I don't have the time or budget right now to get them and try them out. Might be worth a shot trying out to see if they're bright enough. $18 - 2x D1S D2S D3S D4S D1R D2R D3R D4R LED Headlight Bulbs Kit 1000W 150000LM 6000K | eBay
I'm a little hesitant on those. The inventory is in Asia, and they are calling them 1000watt. I assume they are implying that they are equivalent light output to a 1000w incandescent bulb, but even that claim is dubious. As far as the RF noise, that's anybody's guess without trying them. Conducted EMI could still be an issue regardless of whether the ballast is self contained. Although, conducted noise might be easier to mitigate. For the time being I ordered some off brand HID lamps to try out. The car is new to me, and I guess there is no reason to assume that I have a faulty HID ballast yet.
I've considered D2R kits too, as I have some 04 HID headlight housings without ballast in them, and like the look of the 04 headlights better. But I think I'll risk $18 first before trying $100...
Ballasts going bad are exceedingly rare compared to the bulbs. I've bought cheap HID bulbs, and lucked into cheap Philips bulbs - the latter hold up better. Either are FAR cheaper than buying a ballast, at that point, an entire "HID conversion kit" WITH ballasts is cheaper than one new OEM ballast. Used 04-05 ballast are getting harder to find (NO 04-05s within 50+ miles of me, for several years). But if you find one in a boneyard, and can get the bulbs cheap, and they look good, they're worth the risk. NONE of the D4Rs last as long as the D2R in my experience. I've swapped out multiple bulbs in my 06, done one in my MIL's 06, and meanwhile my wife's 04 is STILL on the original bulbs. That voltage change and bulb chemistry change was a step backwards in longevity.
I haven't done the LED lights yet. My Philips are still going that I bought a couple years ago. When they go I'll go the LED path. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
Watched my 23-year-old daughter do the conversion over the weekend, 2005 Prius with HID bulbs. Took about 2 hours. I was there to help but when I saw her grab the wrench I just sat back and mostly watched. Awesome! Bought these with the D2S-D2R option: In case that link disappears, the title was "SoCal-LED D2S (D2R, D4S) Fanless LED Conversion Kit 60W 6400LM 6000K Xenon White Car Headlight Bulbs. " The video from LusciousGarage was essential. Don't pay attention to the idiots leaving negative reviews of the video, they're all men with insecurities around women mechanics: So far so good. Has only been less than a week, but I'm pleased and saved lots of cash!
