5000k HID lights in Winter Gray Prius IV

All good info... the Silverstars just have a hotter surface temp from being overdriven "so the life of the bulb is less" and you get an effective more watts of brightness..
but I agree.. HID is hard to compete with for overall bath of lumens.

Do you think the 50 HID kit would be too much for the low beams?

 

50W HID's will simply pull 50Watts of power to burn instead of the stock 35W and give correspondingly that much more light.

I would definately consider them when you replace your high beams.. but know that above 35W I believe is illegal unless its off road use.. but I can't see that anyone runs around with meters to check... just make sure they are aimed right and don't use them unless your on those lonely treks with no oncoming traffic.....

I have an 80W HID handheld spotlight... Its downright breathtaking to see what all it illuminates and how far it penetrates.

A 100W worth of HID, plus the 75w of the combined lumens (35W X 2) of your lowbeams would be nasty!

HID's do get hot......but so do Halogen I don't know if both together would be an issue.

HID's produce more light per watt than Halogen but they can really cook for long term use....... have you ever gone out and touched your lenses on your low beams after having them on for over 30min?

.. I would wet my finger first!!!

 

Any more tips on how to pull the power fuse box cover, the smaller one? I am just not getting it off!

 

I can get them easily clicked off but just no luck in pulling the cover off. I'm working on it & feel like an idiot!

 

I just wanted to thank Nola_Prius for these outstanding pictures. I just put in some HID's with a huge help with the underhood pics here.

Unfortunately mobilehd.com doesn't sell their kit anymore but I bought some off Amazon and a seperate relay and they're up and running!

Thanks!

 

I purchased mine from HIDextra.com. It was quite inexpensive compared to some of the other places I researched. I purchased the 6000k unit with the slim ballasts. Shipping was fast (got them in about 3 days).
Installation: super quick! My installation was not quite the same as the instructions provided by Nola Prius. These plugged straight into the existing bulb connectors. The driver side took less than 10 minutes. The passenger side took a bit longer as it was quite the contortionist feat to get the bulb in. I mounted the ballasts along the inside fender walls and zip-tied them. Finding locations for the ballast wasn't as bad as I thought as the slim ballast can be fitted in a few places.
Performance: The 6000k units have more of a bluish tint than the 5000k although it is quite white compared to the stock units. I changed the parking lights to white LEDS, and compared to the stock units, the white LEDs were quite drastic.. especially when viewing them reflected off a car's trunk. With the 6000k HIDs, I can't even tell the LEDs are there. The light path has a clear cutoff at the top, although I think it throws too much light to left (at oncoming traffic... oops!). I don't think these HIDs will perform as well as the stocks units in inclement weather (rain), but as I live in SoCal, and in an urban environment, the HIDs fulfill the reasons why I purchased them in the first place. Very happy and pleased with the results.

Thanks Nola, for the inspiration, motivation, and pictures. I'll post pictures when I get a chance.

 

I'm still on the fence whether I like the hid's or the h9 halogens. For the last week I've had the h9's in. I think I'll put the hid's in next week to compare again. Has anyone had to adjust the beam angle with the hid's?

 

Hello people
I am coming from Greece and i just bought a Prius 2010 with Halogen H11 bulbs.
I want to buy a HID kit from USA and i actually don;t know which one.
I have found these 2 sites up to now. The hidextra.com and the xenonhidworlds.com.
The second one offers a 5 year warranty but 6000K bulbs but i want 5000K bulbs.
Do you have any other sites that have HID kits ?
High quality is most important than price for me.

 

Welcome to the forum.... make sure you are not mixing up terms.
HID bulbs are "not" Halogen and vice versa.

HID bulbs require a ballast that generates very high voltage to intiate and Halogen merely require 12Volts.
Their hookup is not the same and even if it was... Hooking a Halogen bulb to a HID receptacle would blow it up as several thousand volts would toast a bulb designed only for 12v. And hooking a HID bulb to a Halogen receptacle would do nothing as there is no voltage "only 12V".

Conversion kits are just that.. they add ballast and make what "was" a 12V setup and turn it into a HID setup with high voltage.

YOu cannot simply swap bulbs back and forth and see what you like unless you uninstall the whole conversion kit and reinstall as you switch.

There seems to be a language barrier in the instructions...

... this part is pretty much correct but doesn't explain the voltage difference.

They have this backwards..... its the HID's that take a few minutes "not 15" to warm up and the Halogen is instantaneous. The hot restrike of an HID bulb is only a few seconds as stated.

Keyword here being "ballast"

This "arc" takes several thousand volts to jump the gap... created by the ballast.

http://www.plasmagarage.com/

 

Thank you a lot for this introduction. I know a few things about Xenon an i know that i need the whole kit.
I would like to know if all kits available in the market are suitable for Prius 2010.
I would like some help in finding websites selling quality kits and suitable for Prius in order to get the best kit for my car.
Finally in most sites i find this "Relay Harness" extra, and i would like to know if this is needed in order to put the HID in my car.
Thank you a lot in advance.

 

Any kit that fits a H11 application will work. In my opinion the most important part of getting a kit is dealing with a reliable dealer. Check out HIDReview.com - Home of HID/Xenon Reviews and Info! - Home . This site has a lot of good information. From there call the company you plan on purchasing from and ask about the differences in the kits they offer.

A Relay harness is not "needed" by most kits but it is highly recommended in order to get clean power. It is very easy to install the harness by following the instructions in this thread http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...alled-some-hids-my-10-prius-5.html#post912326 . I installed the ballasts behind the plastic cover just like hawkmoon77. I didn't buy "slim" ballasts and they fit without a problem.

 

I doubt they all are as the high and low beam may not work right with some kits.

I too intended to put an HID kit when I got my 2010, but after driving it, I don't think I am... they are really nice!
I may put some silver stars to increase output a bit at the expense of a little bulb life "silver stars burn hotter".

I personally have never installed a HID kit.. some are simple based on what I hear, but if you still want to do it, I personally would deal with someone who speaks "good english" so I could be clear as to what the pitfalls are.
That means "don't order from China" most likely!

Customer support that you can actually reach with a phone and understand thier language is worth a few bucks.

 

I got my 5000k kit from hidextra.com and have no problem with it. The light is very bright and has some blue tint in the middle of the cutoff. The rest of the light is very bright white. Only thing I have issue is finding a good place to install the ballast. The regular size ballast are pretty big and I wish I got the slim/small one for the ease of mounting. I end up creating a custom bracket and mounting it at the place where there is a plastic cover at the top of the fender like others do. For $60 upgrade, I'm very happy for dark winter driving.

 

Did you mount it behind the plastic piece or in front of? I mounted mine behind and there is plenty of room for the standard size ballast.

 

I removed the plastic piece and replaced it with a flat metal plate from home depot and mounted the ballasts on it. It's kind of overkill but i want the ballast to be secure.