I have always had good lights on my previous cars.
I started with 4 x 55W standard fittings on my Ford 1600E back in the 1960s which I even upgraded with Cibies.
Since then I have always fitted legal up rated bulbs.

Now I am a X type owner and must agree that the lights are very poor.
I have a direct comparison with my 98 Ford Mondeo - no contest
Fortunately I do not very often drive non motorway roads at night for more than a couple of hours.

So I have decided to upgrade to HIDs plus uprated bulbs.
The laws etc in the UK still seem to be unclear but I want to see where I am driving.

I have read lots of items on Jaguar forums and from suppliers etc.

Now my question!
Which ballast should I look for when I buy a kit?

I can see the attraction of slim line ballasts but I also read that it is important to have enough " grunt" to ensure the full power of the bulb is achieved else the bulbs will be dimmer than their potential.

There must be a risk that because the upgrade will make such an improvement over the old bulbs it will not be apparent that the best has not been achieved.

This is the item that triggered my question.

I think to concept of heavy is good is a bit suspect.
It seems difficult to identify " good" kits. The normal old fashioned idea of buy good buy once may not apply.
There are lots of "do not buy xxx product" in the comments but that is no use to me in the UK.
One highly recommended kit costs £55 others are £15

 

Check out my thread on this subject for my experience with the same project:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...version-80125/

You can probably cheap out on the bulbs and get whatever color rating you want on eBay, but from my experience the right ballast makes a huge difference. I'm running 4 of the full-size Maxlux ballasts right now and they are fantastic.

I had originally purchased the slim Xentec kit off eBay and everything worked fine, but the ballasts were shot within a few days. The bulbs also didn't light up bright enough to show their true color and were flickering.

Check out Amazon, where you can buy complete Maxlux kits:



Or just the ballasts:




If I were starting over from scratch, I would just do it right the first time and get a complete Maxlux kit instead of wasting time and money on eBay

Best of luck!

 

There is a difference in what type HID kit you buy. eBay Guides - AC HID KIT vs. DC HID KIT

 

I would also say that the video you provided is 100% accurate, heavier is definitely better. The Maxlux ballasts I bought seem to be the perfect balance between cost and quality