jonah
Getting familiar with the group...
<sigh> another HID thread!?
this is going to be my end-all story of the lights on my Genesis. it will probably be so boring no one will ever read all of it, but I need to get this all this out anyway and if it helps anyone, so much the better.
i think a lot of people have questions/misconceptions about the lights on our beautiful car and HIDs in general, and I hope to clear a little of that up with my personal experience.
i bought a silver 3.8 tech back in sept. i was so excited to own such a nice car but i immediately wanted to "make it mine" by adding small touches like the license plate lights. i loved the clear white look (as i think most of us do) and so began to change out all the lights I could find with the LEDs. everything was looking very nice but i couldn't get over the headlights, something wasn't right...
my car, like all techs, has factory HIDs with the AFLS system. Like most people have noted, when you first turn them on, they look white for a few seconds then turn yellowish. the projector housings also, in stock configuration, pointed downward causing the "cutoff" line to appear very close to the car, making it easy to overdrive the headlight, especially when approaching the bottom of a hilly road. the little "position light" bulbs near the high beams also looked stupid and ugly. i decided something had to be done, and over the course of the last 6 months i've learned a lot about this subject as I've tried different things to solve my (our) problems. this is my story.
a little googling revealed that all stock HID installations use ~4300K burners (bulbs), as these are the only color that are DOT approved. Differences in appearance are a result of optical projector specifics. The 4300K color temperature was chosen because it generates the greatest light output in lumens. brightness is good, but the distance they projected was not acceptable. I raised the cutoff line about an inch and a half at 6 feet and this made a WORLD of difference. I highly recommend this. The AFLS adjusts FROM the reference angle you can set with a screwdriver just like you'd adject a normal car's headlights...
it is obvious from looking around that, color temp aside, all HIDs do not look the same. you know when someone with a very well done factory installation (most MBs, BMWs and Cadillac Escalades) is driving up because they just have that look. sparkling beautiful white. well i had expected my HIDs to look the same, but thought they fell short. the apparent yellow color was not what i had wanted. in fairness to the stock setup, i never had someone else drive the car to see what they looked like when approaching from a distance, this would have revealed that they weren't as far off as i initially thought, that it is the nature of the projector housing for the color to vary significantly when viewed from different angles. anyway...
the "position light" bulbs were the first change, thanks to another member on the forum I was able to squeeze in and change them out with high intensity white LEDs. they look GREAT and have been my favorite (and cheapest) modification.
i had heard from others on this forum that changing out the stock D1S HID burners was very labor intensive, requiring the removal of the front bumper cover. ugh. well, i didn't want to get into all that so i looked at the fog lights and what i could do there. thanks to other on this forum (PINGGOLF in particular, where ARE YOU??!) i decided initially to try different H8 bulbs, but still halogen. I got some supposedly higher color temperature bulbs (staying at 35W, don't go higher!!!) and put them in after learning how to gain access to the fog light housings. the results were OK but definitely fell short of my expectations. so now...
i was really considering an aftermarket HID kit for the fog lights. after hearing about PINGGOLFs experience with 55W halogen fog lights (they melted his fog lights) i knew i had to be careful, but the promise of brighter, whiter light was compelling. now i had to decipher a HID kit market that looked like it was full of products that ran the full spectrum of price and marketing budget. How in the world could I pick a product that would suit my needs? Everyone said to avoid the ebay crap, but...
after looking at everything that was out there i noticed that all the kits looked the same. they all had a ballast (either the larger, thicker, "magnetic core" ballast or the smaller, thinner, "digital" ballast) and connected to the burners in the same way. i decided to go on my intuition that this was now a commodity product and probably all kits were produced in the same factory in china then sold by the vendors with their own sticker on the front at whatever price they thought their marketing efforts could support. based on my experience this has turned out to be true...
i bought a kit at the lowest price i could find, one with the larger magnetic ballasts for the H8 foglights. after i installed it (required taking the front wheels off to gain access, major pain!!), it wouldn't work at all. well crap. on a whim, i hooked the kit up to a high current 12V power supply i happened to have, and to my surprise they lit up just fine, as bright as day! the problem had been the stock wiring, apparently unable to transfer enough current to start the HIDs...
i decided to try the "digital" ballast kits, thinking they would require less current. again i bought one of the cheapest i could find. this time, one would work fine with the stock wiring, but not two installed at the same time. crap.
i learned that many times a relay is needed to bring sufficient current to the ballast to ignite reliably. i got one and put it in, using the terminals over on the left side of the engine bay for 12V hot. this worked great, and they have been working fine ever since. the light is remarkably bright, almost too much so, but it shines down at the original factory angle for the fog lights and i think i can get away with it. i just saw a local cop pull over an Escalade last night with a similar kit that was obviously set too high. now i almost wonder if it's just a matter of time for me and if i should have bothered at all...
now the fogs were the right color (i went with a 6000K kit) but the main low beams were still yellowish. i decided to bite the bullet and ordered the cheapest D1S bulbs I could find, at $99. They range all the way up to $600, I can't imagine why. The only thing different about the D1S burners is that they include the ignitor. the ballast for the stock installation is below the headlight assembly, which i learned when i had the bumper removed at a local body shop for basically nothing. I put in my new 6000K D1S burners and...
they do look better! the color looks right now from any angle, and the reflection off street signs is a very nice high white/blue sparkle. overall i'm happy with this except for one thing, they are DIMMER. I knew they were going to be, but was disappointed when i saw just how much dimmer. the good news is that with my new HID fogs, at the same color, when both are on, the result is almost perfect. the higher cutoff of my low beams hits just below the horizon, and the fogs (at the stock angle) fill in perfectly below. it really is very nice.
with the extra ballast i changed out the high beams as well. i know all about the downsides of doing so, and agree that the HID probably isn't ideal for the nature of high beam usage, but let's try anyway. this required another relay/wiring harness. this was easily the hardest part, as there is very little room to work. installed, they are VERY bright and light up the entire space in front of the car at night, as far as you can see. the only oddity has been that when i turn the high beams on now, get this, the radio changes to the USB drive, first song. it does this every time. very weird, i'm working on it now. i hope it's not EMI or RFI, as I'm not dealing with filters and all that. anyway
i have pics i'll post when i can.
hope my story helps anyone considering HIDs. please post any questions you have and i'll do my best to answer. this forum has been very helpful, let's keep the community going strong
this is going to be my end-all story of the lights on my Genesis. it will probably be so boring no one will ever read all of it, but I need to get this all this out anyway and if it helps anyone, so much the better.
i think a lot of people have questions/misconceptions about the lights on our beautiful car and HIDs in general, and I hope to clear a little of that up with my personal experience.
i bought a silver 3.8 tech back in sept. i was so excited to own such a nice car but i immediately wanted to "make it mine" by adding small touches like the license plate lights. i loved the clear white look (as i think most of us do) and so began to change out all the lights I could find with the LEDs. everything was looking very nice but i couldn't get over the headlights, something wasn't right...
my car, like all techs, has factory HIDs with the AFLS system. Like most people have noted, when you first turn them on, they look white for a few seconds then turn yellowish. the projector housings also, in stock configuration, pointed downward causing the "cutoff" line to appear very close to the car, making it easy to overdrive the headlight, especially when approaching the bottom of a hilly road. the little "position light" bulbs near the high beams also looked stupid and ugly. i decided something had to be done, and over the course of the last 6 months i've learned a lot about this subject as I've tried different things to solve my (our) problems. this is my story.
a little googling revealed that all stock HID installations use ~4300K burners (bulbs), as these are the only color that are DOT approved. Differences in appearance are a result of optical projector specifics. The 4300K color temperature was chosen because it generates the greatest light output in lumens. brightness is good, but the distance they projected was not acceptable. I raised the cutoff line about an inch and a half at 6 feet and this made a WORLD of difference. I highly recommend this. The AFLS adjusts FROM the reference angle you can set with a screwdriver just like you'd adject a normal car's headlights...
it is obvious from looking around that, color temp aside, all HIDs do not look the same. you know when someone with a very well done factory installation (most MBs, BMWs and Cadillac Escalades) is driving up because they just have that look. sparkling beautiful white. well i had expected my HIDs to look the same, but thought they fell short. the apparent yellow color was not what i had wanted. in fairness to the stock setup, i never had someone else drive the car to see what they looked like when approaching from a distance, this would have revealed that they weren't as far off as i initially thought, that it is the nature of the projector housing for the color to vary significantly when viewed from different angles. anyway...
the "position light" bulbs were the first change, thanks to another member on the forum I was able to squeeze in and change them out with high intensity white LEDs. they look GREAT and have been my favorite (and cheapest) modification.
i had heard from others on this forum that changing out the stock D1S HID burners was very labor intensive, requiring the removal of the front bumper cover. ugh. well, i didn't want to get into all that so i looked at the fog lights and what i could do there. thanks to other on this forum (PINGGOLF in particular, where ARE YOU??!) i decided initially to try different H8 bulbs, but still halogen. I got some supposedly higher color temperature bulbs (staying at 35W, don't go higher!!!) and put them in after learning how to gain access to the fog light housings. the results were OK but definitely fell short of my expectations. so now...
i was really considering an aftermarket HID kit for the fog lights. after hearing about PINGGOLFs experience with 55W halogen fog lights (they melted his fog lights) i knew i had to be careful, but the promise of brighter, whiter light was compelling. now i had to decipher a HID kit market that looked like it was full of products that ran the full spectrum of price and marketing budget. How in the world could I pick a product that would suit my needs? Everyone said to avoid the ebay crap, but...
after looking at everything that was out there i noticed that all the kits looked the same. they all had a ballast (either the larger, thicker, "magnetic core" ballast or the smaller, thinner, "digital" ballast) and connected to the burners in the same way. i decided to go on my intuition that this was now a commodity product and probably all kits were produced in the same factory in china then sold by the vendors with their own sticker on the front at whatever price they thought their marketing efforts could support. based on my experience this has turned out to be true...
i bought a kit at the lowest price i could find, one with the larger magnetic ballasts for the H8 foglights. after i installed it (required taking the front wheels off to gain access, major pain!!), it wouldn't work at all. well crap. on a whim, i hooked the kit up to a high current 12V power supply i happened to have, and to my surprise they lit up just fine, as bright as day! the problem had been the stock wiring, apparently unable to transfer enough current to start the HIDs...
i decided to try the "digital" ballast kits, thinking they would require less current. again i bought one of the cheapest i could find. this time, one would work fine with the stock wiring, but not two installed at the same time. crap.
i learned that many times a relay is needed to bring sufficient current to the ballast to ignite reliably. i got one and put it in, using the terminals over on the left side of the engine bay for 12V hot. this worked great, and they have been working fine ever since. the light is remarkably bright, almost too much so, but it shines down at the original factory angle for the fog lights and i think i can get away with it. i just saw a local cop pull over an Escalade last night with a similar kit that was obviously set too high. now i almost wonder if it's just a matter of time for me and if i should have bothered at all...
now the fogs were the right color (i went with a 6000K kit) but the main low beams were still yellowish. i decided to bite the bullet and ordered the cheapest D1S bulbs I could find, at $99. They range all the way up to $600, I can't imagine why. The only thing different about the D1S burners is that they include the ignitor. the ballast for the stock installation is below the headlight assembly, which i learned when i had the bumper removed at a local body shop for basically nothing. I put in my new 6000K D1S burners and...
they do look better! the color looks right now from any angle, and the reflection off street signs is a very nice high white/blue sparkle. overall i'm happy with this except for one thing, they are DIMMER. I knew they were going to be, but was disappointed when i saw just how much dimmer. the good news is that with my new HID fogs, at the same color, when both are on, the result is almost perfect. the higher cutoff of my low beams hits just below the horizon, and the fogs (at the stock angle) fill in perfectly below. it really is very nice.
with the extra ballast i changed out the high beams as well. i know all about the downsides of doing so, and agree that the HID probably isn't ideal for the nature of high beam usage, but let's try anyway. this required another relay/wiring harness. this was easily the hardest part, as there is very little room to work. installed, they are VERY bright and light up the entire space in front of the car at night, as far as you can see. the only oddity has been that when i turn the high beams on now, get this, the radio changes to the USB drive, first song. it does this every time. very weird, i'm working on it now. i hope it's not EMI or RFI, as I'm not dealing with filters and all that. anyway
i have pics i'll post when i can.
hope my story helps anyone considering HIDs. please post any questions you have and i'll do my best to answer. this forum has been very helpful, let's keep the community going strong
Last edited:
