decent HID look bulbs?

[Akane]

Where do you get GP thunders?

I got mine when I was in Hong Kong about 2 years ago, for about $20 NZD

There are people bringing them to NZ recently, they go for around $50 on tardeme IIRC.

HTH.

[AE82 FXGT]

looks like they arn't exactly legal to use however , but seeing as they can be removed, and the old halogens put back in about 30mins, i'll simply do that before the wof.

as long as the headlight alignment is set right and you go for the average colour spec (6000k), then you shouldn't have any problems dazzling people or getting in trouble for the colour.

i thought that they were iulligal cause the factory headlight casing can't handle the heat they produce, or something.

[Mr.Phreak]

HIDs should run cooler than most other bulbs, the problem is the lens' which create glare and distract other road users.

[MasCam]

Just been babelfishing the japanese toyota site for all the bits on the facelift of my car (The new caldina st246W GT-4) because I have a broken rib and am getting REALLY bored.

Anyway

Appartently it now comes with HID high beams as well as low beams and HID fog lights are an option although an expensive one, now all of that would look cool

Theoreticaly I could get, oh I don't know, say revhead to get me some of the lights from the facelift car and have lots of HID that was legal in new zealand. And all for probably the same price as a complete engine rebuild or half the TRD catlogue. Hmmm if I ever completely smash the front up he may get a call.

[SuperSupra]

HIDs should run cooler than most other bulbs, the problem is the lens' which create glare and distract other road users.

you mean they distract other road users because they look so good right

haven't had any problems yet...

[Mr.Phreak]

When properly adjusted yes, any other time they look $&#$% awful

There's a reason that most Factory HIDs are self levelling

[gmacrae]

Ok, so after 2 pages, im still none the wiser. Can nobody tell me where to go to buy a decent set of bright white/bluish HB3's ?

SuperSupra, HID's aren't really bighter man, the reason for the increase in clarity is mainly the colour. Blue/white makes road markings and signs stand out more, something you can achieve with the right set of bulbs - but with $250ish still in your pocket, and no hassles from the WOF man.

Good bulbs are easy to find in H4, HB3's are a mission

[Spannergal]

i don't know where you'd find them. however, if you want to avoid trouble with the WOF man, I'd stay away from anything bluish. The people that I do work ex for my course with do a fair number of wofs and I've seen a couple of vehicles fairly in the last few weeks because the headlights looked blue

[nobody]

I had the same trouble finding 9005 (HB3) and 9006 bulbs, in the end I got my Philips Blue Visions from powerbulbs in the uk. They cost around $60 (19 pounds) for the pair with free shipping (which took about a week).

http://www.powerbulbs.co.uk/default.asp?prodtype.asp?PT_ID=78&strPageHistory=cat

The bluevisions put out a nice bright white light with a tinge of blue, and have lasted over 2 years now (cheaper ones apparently burn out after 12 months, though that maybe because people touch the bulbs glass when installing).

Hope this helps.

[sergei]

If you are after the BLING and only care what HOMIES and G-UNITS think about your car, and don't really care about safety (basically a "cut spring" personality) DON'T read what I wrote down, as it does not apply to you.


Do you guys realize that HID colour is side effect? In fact that you see better with unfiltered halogen lights? That with blue lightning the human eye is slower to adapt to brightness difference, as well it less sensitive in that colour range (less "resolution"). Right now it is really challenging to make HID lights which will glow with wide spectrum (especially in reds and yellows), that is why most HID are "cold" blue coloured, I find it really annoying when someone is driving behind me with HID lights, I actually find less annoying someone on High beam on normal lights. No matter how bright is your halogen light bulb, as long as it is coloured you will be worse in terms of vision than some one on stock lights. Best upgrades to do to your lighting system are: upgrade wiring, clean lights (if polycarbonate polish them with brasso or autosol), don't use "filtered" lights (although yellow is somewhat ok for other road users) the only filter it should have is UV filter (and only good for polycarbonate lights), use higher glow xenon lights if you preffer those, I personally would use higher power light bulbs, but there is no point of using very high power if your light is polycarbonate and/or you wiring/alternator cannot supports this (it would melt the lense and/or heat up the wiring) as it would not be bright anyway.
I've upgraded the wiring to a fatter gauge, reroute the wires so it would not earth through the combination switch (introduced relays to do that), in the end with the standard 55/65W light bulbs (probably a few years old) it looks like I have 100W there. Also if you have the option of getting glass lights instead of polycarbonate I would suggest you installing those. You can run more powerfull lights + glass is much better at refracting/conducting light also can stand much more heat.

[method]

Im not sure if what you are saying is actually correct, but if you've driven a car with HID's they seem to light up a lot more of the road and reflectors reflect a lot more light. Its nearly like driving with normal lights on high beam, but with the beam still dipped if that makes sense.

I was always under the impression HID lights had a better colour spectrum and over three times the luminence.

[sergei]

The HID has a narrower spectrum, and even if it is more efficient they used lower power bulbs (arround 30W?).
Narrow spectrum of HID is due to nature of light (gas discharge).
Some reading material:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenon_arc_lamp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headlight#HID_Headlamps

And the most importantly:

Despite marketing claims to the contrary, HID headlamps' light output is not similar to daylight. The spectral power distribution (SPD) of an automotive HID headlamp is discontinuous, while the SPD of a filament lamp, like that of the sun, is a continuous curve.

Same thing applies to LED lights. Anyone who knows little about physics of the process creating light in normal bulb vs HID will understand why HID does not have linear spectrum.

Although, HID lights are not really bad, they are very efficient. My point use that halogen lights that mimic colour of an HID is counterproductive.

[MasCam]

I have HID low beams on my caldina and I love them, I have driven other vehicles without HID's lately and it was horrible.

That being said the "HID look" lamps are are bucket of poo in most cases. If the lamp is coloured blue I would avoid it as all it is doing is filtering out most of the light. I did some test with a light meter (see here) and ended up going for the phillips +50 lamps which I also had in my last car. I might consider the cool blue ones but they only quote the light output as similar to a normal halogen lamp, I would rather have the higher light output.

Also I thought that putting higher powered lamps in your car was illegal for the road?? guess you would not like to be followed by someone with those either??

The worst thing is SUV's with HID's not only are they glarey but they are right at your eyehight

Chris

[muppet]

There are these being addvertised on TradeMe at the moment, having a higher colour temerature of 5000K these look more blue/whiteish, and they are cheap as some of the low colour temperature ones.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Motor ... 229742.htm

[method]

The HID has a narrower spectrum, and even if it is more efficient they used lower power bulbs (arround 30W?).
Narrow spectrum of HID is due to nature of light (gas discharge).
Some reading material:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenon_arc_lamp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headlight#HID_Headlamps

And the most importantly:

Despite marketing claims to the contrary, HID headlamps' light output is not similar to daylight. The spectral power distribution (SPD) of an automotive HID headlamp is discontinuous, while the SPD of a filament lamp, like that of the sun, is a continuous curve.

Same thing applies to LED lights. Anyone who knows little about physics of the process creating light in normal bulb vs HID will understand why HID does not have linear spectrum.

Although, HID lights are not really bad, they are very efficient. My point use that halogen lights that mimic colour of an HID is counterproductive.

Yeah i remember now, different gasses let off different colours of the spectrum.

Did that way back in 7th form phsyics

I just want sure how linear the spectrum created by xeon gas was allthought it cant be much of a dissadvantage otherwise they would not have phased out normal fillament type light bulbs.

[gmacrae]

OK, repco have just started selling the phillips bulbs, i got some bluevisions and they're pretty much the same thing as the narvas. Oh well, at least they're bright, and not too yellow.