Morning all,

One of my headlight bulbs as blown (dipped beam). I believe it is a H1 type as my car is 2003, is their a upgrade bulb a could use and what would be the best recommendation. I need to get them as bright as possible. I will renew both pair.

I am right in thinking that the HID were fitted after 2004?

Thanks in advance.

 

In the UK these seem to get top of similar reviews.
I am going to fit them.

Philips X-Treme Power +80% H1 Headlight Bulbs | eBay

I will also be fitting
PHILIPS BLUE VISION ULTRA W5W UPGRADE SIDE LIGHT BULBS | eBay
I fitted these on my Mondeo and was very impressed.
The label says blue but the light was white.
The standard bulbs look orange but these are so much brighter that they act as a good back up if a dip beam fails.


Not sure of the date but HIDs were ( a rare?) option on some versions.

 

I went aftermarket HID kit and spent less than $70 on the whole setup...much brighter than halogen and last longer, on the Halogens just be careful about extra wattage as I have heard and read our harnesses are sensitive and if they overheat they can melt

 

Hi all,

I think I will keep it simple... Philips X-Treme Power +80% H1 Headlight Bulbs at £15.00 and some side lights too.

Many thanks for the advice

Regards,

 

There is a newer version of the Philips bulbs, now 100% rather than 80%


I fitted some last week and they are good, they seem slightly brighter than the X-Treme 80%s they replaced but they were 2 years old so may have dimmed a bit.

There is also a new Osram, the Nightbreaker 110% but I don't know how they compare.

I don't have any experience of after market HIDs

 

cyberice, with our cars, halogen and HID bulbs were offered all years. So, you need to look to see what kind of bulb you have. The easiest check is to simply open the driver's door and look near the hinges. If you have HIDs installed from the factory, there will be a sticker that is roughly 10cmx15cm stating that the car was built with HID bulbs and that special care is needed for these bulbs. The other check that you can do is to simply watch the headlights come on. Halogen bulbs will snap on and be at a constant brightness. Where HIDs will sometimes flicker really bright, dim down some, then come up in intensity (or simply start out dim and come up in brightness) over a few seconds.

Like was also mentioned, be careful going after bulbs that advertise that they are brighter because in a lot of cases, they get the extra light intensity by drawing more power. Some of the members here have horror stories about the headlight sockets melting and in general creating a mess inside of the headlight housing in trying to get the plug off of the headlight bulb. Then fixing it can be a challenge.

If you are looking at going HID (which our cars are capable of being converted over without any major upgrades, not all vehicles are capable of that), there is a few things that you need to keep in mind. First off, HIDs operate on a completely different principle than halogen bulbs do in making light. As a result, you would be going after a 35W HID bulb, vice a 50W HID bulb. 35W HID bulbs are street legal, 50W HIDs are NOT!!!!! The 50W HID bulbs output too much light. Also, the 50W HIDs can pull too much power upon start up and can damage the wiring of the car (can pull upwards of 30 amps per bulb for the first few seconds).

As for kits for HIDs, I have not really found one that I can truely recommend without you spending some serious money. I have tried some of the $40 (USD) HID kits and while they work great initially, I have not found any that really last a long time. Normally the ballasts fail leading to the bulb not working. As a result, if you are looking at doing an HID conversion, I would recommend finding the HID bulbs that fit your application and noting what kind of plugs that they come with (you have a choice of 2 different style plugs). Then you can get a pair of Maxlux ballasts (with the same style plug). Maxlux makes the ballasts for the factory installed HID systems and when you see what a Maxlux ballasts (ensure they are 35W ballasts as you cannot use a 50W ballast with a 35W bulb or vice versa) looks like next to one of the "e-bay cheapy" HID kits, you will understand why they last forever. Then all you will have to do is to get a pair of 9006 bulb plugs to make it all work. If you need help wiring it up, let me know. IT is pretty straight forward.

The last thing you need to keep in mind when it comes to HIDs is that they come in many different colors (ie, you can get yellow bulbs, mostly white with a hint of yellow, snow white, mainly white with a hint of blue, blue, and into purples and pinks). If you are after as bright of a light as you can get, then you are looking at an HID kit that is either rated at "4300K" or "5000K". That will give you a mostly white light if not snow white with the most light output that is legally allowed.

If you have any more questions, let me know. I know a few things about the HID kits and can explain what the differences between various ratings are and how they will affect what you get.

 

Those Philips X-Treme Power 100% bulbs are apparently very good. They were highly praised in a recent magazine test here and I recall someone saying on the UK forum that in his car they lasted something like 2 years. I'll get a set when I have gathered enough energy to change them.

 

Hi Thermo,

Thanks for the advice, I have checked the bulbs today and they are H1 55W with a blue tip, I would like to upgrade to HID but are unsure on how to and which kit to buy. Is their a thread on here that shows me what to do? Can you advice me on which are the best kits available?

My car is a 2003 2.1 V6 Petrol with H1 55W bulbs as stranded.

Regards,

 

There have conversations on fitting HIDs in the UK which I have followed with interest as especially I am in agreement with many others that the dip beams are poor.
From what I have read 55W " normal" bulbs re the legal maximum wattage allowed so staying legal should not risk the wiring.
Higher wattage bulbs are available but for off road use only.
In the UK HIDs must have a self leveling feature and headlamp washers.
You will see, on start up, that HIDS light up and then the beam rises up. To all intents and purposes auto self leveling cannot be retro fitted.
However it seems that the UK Ministry of Transport ( MoT) testers are have been happy provided the headlamp beams on kits are correctly set so not to dazzle on coming drivers.

Insurance is the biggest concern for many.
As you are probably aware any changes should/must be notified to your insurance company.
HIDs kits are not an original fitting/option, not Jaguar, are not self leveling so how can an insurance company approve them?
It is perceived that insurance companies will not pay out claims if they discover, after an accident, that any non standard/non approved items that they had not been informed about were found in the wreck.
For example tyres with the wrong ( lower) speed rating. Hids may well be in this same category.

I am not prepared to risk giving an insurance company an easy obvious excuse to reject a claim so no HIDs or other mods for me.

I hope this helps now it's your call.

 

Hi Aonsaithya

That may have been me. A bulb blew 3 days after I posted that they were still going strong. I should have known better than to tempt fate. On the bright side, I managed to change both dipped beam bulbs in just under 20 minutes. I was pretty pleased as I was dreading doing it.

I totally agree with Henry K regarding the HIDs. Plus there are a few stories about problems with them e.g. dark areas within the beam and fitting problems as some HID bulbs have a thicker base leading to clips breaking.

The X-Treme & Nightbreakers are all 55W so you shouldn't have any problems. The only down side is that they burn out quicker than standard bulbs.

 

Lets first start off this conversation that before you get into converting your lighting system to HIDs that you check your local laws. What I am about to describe is all based on my local laws (ie, US DOT or American laws in general). Due to the diverse group that we have here, trying to cover all regions and their laws is not possible. So, before performing this upgrade, check to see what your local area requires and whether local laws may be broken or not. With that being said.......

Why do you want to upgrade to HIDs? Normally the answer is pretty universal. I want more light. This is where the legal problems start. Keep in mind that a standard halogen bulb outputs around 1500 lumen of light. A 4300K 35W HID bulb outputs around 3300 lumen of light. So, you are getting over 2 times the light from a bulb that pulls just over half the power. You can kinda liken this to driving around with your high beams on all the time as this would be about the same amount of light. The reason why factory HID systems are not so blinding is that the light is focused to help prevent it from being spread to the oncoming lanes. Fortunately for us with X-Types, even the halogen systems have the focusing element installed. So, upgrading to HIDs is possible without major expense. The reason that the focusing element is needed is the basic fact that a halogen bulb produces all of its light in a pinpoint location. So a simple reflector can adequately control the beam. With an HID bulb, the light is generated in a much bigger area and therefore a simple reflector can not realistically control all the light to where you want it to go. This is where a lot of the legal problems arise is due to people putting HIDs in cars without the proper focusing equipment.

Now, with that being said, if you look back, I reference a very specific HID bulb (4300K 35W). HID bulbs come in atleast 3 different wattage ratings (35W, 50W and 80W) for use in vehicles. Only the 35W bulb is "street legal" (ie, US DOT approved, which is a general standard that can be directly applied to a lot of other regions) and from here on out I am only going to refer to it as an "HID bulb" unless I specifically state something different. The others will fit into your car and can be wired up. But, without proper wiring, these higher power lights can result in damage to your vehicle. So, know what you are installing and what needs to be done before you wire them up. I also refer to the bulb as being "4300K". This number refers to the color that the bulb emits. In short, 4300K is the color of light that a specific kind of metal emits when heated to 4300 kelvin ( roughly 4000C, or 7280F). As you change the temperature, the color of light changes (more on this in a moment). So, you need to decide what color light you are after as this not only affects what color light is seen by others, what color light is reflected back at you, but also the amount of light that is generated. The 4300K bulbs emit the most light. But, this light is mostly white with a slight yellow halo/tint to it. You go with 5000K bulbs and you get a snow white light. You go with 6000K bulbs, now you are going to get the snow white light with a blue tint/halo to it. 8000K and you are starting to get into blue light. You can get into purple and pink light if you go far enough. But, keep in mind that the 4300K bulbs output 3300 lumen, the 5000K put out 3200 lumen, 6000K put out 3100 lumen, 8000K put out 2900 lumen. As you can see, it can really start to affect the amount of light that you have available.

So, as you can see, the options are very wide and you need to start narrowing down what you are looking for so you are not getting information overloaded. So, the easiest question is whether you are looking for maximum light or for a specific look? Once you answer that, your choices that you have to pick from will become pretty small.

Now, for the best kit to pick from. That is a very loaded question and I am going to give you my personal experience as I have installed quite a few kits over the years and follow up with people to see how the kits are doing long after they get installed. Most of the "cheapy" (under $100 USD) kits are going to last you about a year before you start having issues. After that year, you can plan on the ballasts failing (if not after the first month or two, been there, seen that more times). Now, with that being said, you do have options. You can spend the big dollar and get some high dollar kit, but even a lot of those use fairly cheap parts. What I recommend you do is to figure out what color bulb you are after and purchase the color bulb you are after in the bulb style applicable to your car and then note what type of connectors are on the bulb (there are 2 types for most applications). From there, find a place that sells 35W "Maxlux" ballasts. Maxlux is a company that makes the ballasts for most of the automotive industry. When you see a Maxlux ballast next to one of the "cheapy e-bay" HID kits, you will easily see the difference and why I recommend them. Amazon.com sells them for around $35 each (you will need 2). From there, you can get yourself some 9006 bulb connectors and have yourself a really good kit for around $100 that will have the same parts that the e-bay kits will have.

This is where some looking will come in to play. There are universal fit HID bulbs and then you have very specific bulbs. Some will say "fits H1, H11, H7, ......" and list about 20 bulbs that it will replace. While the HID bulb that you get will go into the opening for that style bulb, it may not fit great. Where if you get an HID bulb that is specifically made to fit an H1 bulb opening, the fit is going to be much better and can mean a lot in the end. The downside is that normally this will cost you a little bit more. This is one of those cases where you are getting what you are paying for (same can be said about the ballasts in a lot of cases).

Installing the HIDs into the headlights is really pretty easy and straight forward (you will probably spend more time hunting up the parts than actually installing them). The first step will be to remove the front bumper cover. Do not fret, this is actually pretty easy. Next you will want to remove the headlight assembly from the car. At this point you can remove the back cover from the low/dip beam lens and set it off to the side and then remove the H1 bulb. You will see a colored wire and a black wire going to the H1 bulb. Cut the connector off of both wires and then strip off about 1cm (3/8") of the insulation from each wire. If you bought a kit, it will have a nice grommet for you, otherwise, you may need to figure out a way that you are going to be able to pass the wires through the cover that you removed. At this point you will need to drill a hole to fit your grommet (the e-bay kits use a 7/8" grommet and I have found that the step drill bits work great at this point). You will need to place the wiring through the created hole so that you can get the 12 VDC out of the headlight assembly and the HID bulb power back in. At this point you can use butt splice terminals to join the black ballast power wire to the black wire in the headlight assembly and the red ballast power wire to the colored wire. The wires going to the bulb will also be black and red, but they will have a connector on the end of the wires. You can now place the bulb into the headlight housing (make sure not to let your bare skin touch the glass of the HID bulb, if it does, clean with a paper towel or cotton rag with no cleaner on it) and then make up the connectors. At this point, I recommend checking to see if the headlight will work. Keep in mind that the ballast is polarity sensitive so you may need to flip the plug going into the ballast around to switch the power wires coming in. Once the HID bulb lights up, you can install the headlight assembly (I have found that using some double sided tape, you can mount the ballast under where the headlight assembly sits) and then go on to the other side to repeat what you just did. At this point, you reinstall the bumper cover and all is good.

You can plan on spending about 2 hours (if you understand wiring and get all the polarities right) to get this job done. If you run into problems, it can take longer. Take your time and do it right the first time as pulling the bumper cover off gets really old after doing it a lot over a long weekend.

Hopefully I have not information overloaded you with this write up. But, as you can see, picking HIDs is not a simple "that one will do" thing if you are trying to do it right.

I want to leave you with one last thing to think about if you are looking at running the higher wattage HIDs. The factory wiring is barely capable of handling the 35W HID ballasts as they each pull about 20 amps for the first few seconds. This puts a heavy load on the wiring and stresses it pretty good. A 50W HID bulb is going to pull 30 amps per ballast. The 80W ballasts pull around 50 amps each. Additional wiring is needed to handle the higher wattage units unless of course you like BBQ'ed kitty. At a minimum you are going to be blowing fuses and destroying relays left and right. If you have questions, just ask. I will tell you what you need and how to do it safely.

 

A very interesting and informative post - thanks Thermo. The guys on the UK site all seem to be fitting 55W HID kits rather than the 35W with no reference to the initial amperage. I assume they are unaware of the increased initial draw and assume it's replacing a 55W bulb so will be OK. It could be a bit of a time bomb.

 

hebally, what they don't know is the scary part. Granted, I tend to fail a bit on the conservative side. But then, I have also spent time with Ford Engineers and got their feeling of how they build various parts of vehicles and when it comes to the wiring, they use the minimum gauge wire possible to save on weight. They can potentially shave up to 100 pounds off of a car by using the smallest gauge wire possible. That can mean about 1 mpg for the EPA ratings.

Another way to look at it. The headlights are really meant to only handle about 5 amps each. So, the engineers install 18 gauge wire for this application (to account for the use of the optional HID headlights. This wire only has a max rating of 16 amps (potentially less based on the length of wire, but that is a much too deep discussion for here). So, even 35W HIDs are pushing the limits/exceeding the limits of that wiring. Now you are looking at potentially pushing 30 amps (or twice the limit) through the wire when using the 50W HIDs (they don't make 55W HIDs, they are just advertised as that since people are so used to looking for 55W bulbs and if you say that they are only 50W, then they must OBVIOUSLY be the WRONG ONES!!!!!). The big thing to keep in mind is that this high current is only for a few seconds and not for long periods of time. But, it also makes the ballast have to work that much harder to get the necessary power to get the HID bulbs started. 35W HIDs pull about 3.5 amps during steady state and the 50W HIDs pull about 5.5 amps steady state. So, they are within limits once things have settled out.

Keep in mind that the relay that powers the headlights is also only rated at 30 amps. So, even straight out of the factory, the relay is undersized for the start of the HIDs. Seems to hack it, but how well?

The other thing to keep in mind is that normally the weak link is not so much the wiring as the pins in the plugs. But, that has so many variables, I am not going to go down that road.

Please keep in mind that I tend to do my wiring to a higher standard that a lot of people. But, with a background in nuclear power, you make sure that things are done right the first time and you don't have an OOPPSSS moment. So, I tend to over design things a bit. But, when I make a system, you can be pretty much garanteed you won't have a problem with it in the future. So, you can probably push what I say some when it comes to wiring.

 

I was looking into changing mine as well on my 05 x type but was wanting leds not a fan of hids. I did some research on it but couldn't find anything with x types and leds do they not make leds for that or not??

 

Probably would not be bright enough to pass as headlights

 

Sadly, we might never see an LED H1 drop-in replacement. The reflector etc are designed for a single filament light source while LEDs are different. Unless a similarly sized LED is designed at some point, the whole reflector would have to be re-designed. Also, LEDs produce quite a lot of heat, but unlike halogen bulbs, they produce the heat at the rear of the LED, not where the light goes, so it'd require cooling as well.

 

bobbu, like was mentioned, LEDs operate on a different principle that halogen or HID bulbs. They emit light over a much larger area. You would need something a lot different than what the X-Type comes with. You can read this as you would need an entirely new headlight assembly. At this point in the car's life, that is not likely to happen.

Now, some members have done some customization and they have added some LEDs to their headlight housings to give their cars "angel eyes". But, that is about as far as you will be able to go unless you want to make a 1 off setup.

 

Hmm alright so with hids theres no way around the 10 second warm up time??...I dont really know much about this stuff sorry lol...when I flip my lights on I want instant blue lights to come on...will I not be able to have that?

 

bobbu, my HIDs come to full brightness in about 2 seconds. That is about as good as you are going to get without getting into some serious modification. You could use some 5050 SMD LEDs and then get whatever color you want. But then, you are needing to completely dismantle the headlights, drill a series of holes around the edge, glue in a bunch of LEDs, solder them all together, and then wire up the controller. Going with say just blue, then you can get away with say some 5mm blue LEDs, but it is not going to be enough to be able to drive by. But, should result in a nice accent to the car. That would be an instant blue. If you are curious, having around 300,000 mcd of LEDs is going to give off about the same amount of light as a 5W incandescent bulb (which is the size of the driving light bulb in the high beam housing when you only have the low beams on). If you want to go down this route, let me know. I can give you some pointers. I have created some LED tail lights for my Expedition from pieces. I also do a lot with model trains and LEDs. I am now working on converting my entire house over to custom LED fixtures.

 

Thanks Thermo! So you would just recommend going with the hid then? Is there anything i should look for when buying some or just any h1 hid will work?