How many have fitted a real XENON/HID kit to their Insight??

[japanev1]

The more expensive HID kits will only last longer and are less likely to cause electrical issues. Glare from the bulbs will depend on the bulb type and positioning which will vary slightly by manufacturer. If you have excessive glare problems with your HID kit, you can purchase adapter plates such as the one in the link below so long as your specific HID bulbs are compatible with the adapter plate. There are more detailed pictures and information on the ebay page.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayI ... gory=36476

[billybass999]

i have had my aftermarket kit installed for well over a year without a single problem..
good customer service from day one and helped me through it every step..i got them locally here in the bay area from f1 spec..definatly give them a shoot..in fact here is a link. http://www.f1spec.com/

[bagwell]

a bought a xenondepot.com kit for $199, zero issues, works great - but I lost my hi-beams (which I never use anyway, except when some A**hole pulls in front of me).

[bretthans]

I have tried an HID kit in my Insight. The kit came with Philips D2S HID bulbs rebased to H4, included the aforementioned EBay adapter plate, and mounted into the stock Insight headlights.

Pros: I got a lot of light. Compared to the stock halogen headlights, it was like night and day. I didn't need the missing high-beams. Overhead street signs lit up brilliantly.

Cons: I got a lot of light where other drivers don't want it. The Insight reflector and lens are designed for halogen bulbs and have very little cutoff when fitted with HID. I polished the headlight lenses and re-aimed the headlights but still was blinding cars and semis alike. I was flooding the passenger compartments of both oncoming traffic and cars that had just passed me. Semis were flashing their rearward lights at me (you, know, the ones they use to tell you your high-beams are on).

I finally just took them out and put the old halogen bulbs back in.

You might have better luck with D2R HID bulbs, if you can find them. These have parts of the bulb masked, are designed for HID reflectors, and emit less light, but they might be a compromise between blinding other traffic and retrofitting projectors into the existing headlights.

Even retrofitting projectors is not a perfect solution because, while you no longer use the stock reflector, you're still stuck with the stock lens. It's still better than the other solutions, though.

I myself am looking for a way to mount my existing HID kit somewhere else in the front of the car besides the stock headlights because:
1) modifying the stock headlights would cause me to fail the annual state safety inspection.
2) the stock lenses would not be in the light path

If I don't want to hang them in front of the air intake grill like foglights (which to me is not attractive), the only other option would be to remove the bumper cover and install them there. There's very little room in there, so I'm not sure they would fit without protruding. I am looking at some of the OEM Bi-Xenon HID projectors available and trying to find the shallowest ones. I would possibly enclose them somehow and add a Lexan cover for the projector lens.


Just my 2 cents, which doesn't buy much.

[travisgarrison]

I think your results are proving a point made earlier in the thread that the reflectors are not made for HID drop-in. When you look at every other HID equipped car it will have projectors for the HID instead of reflectors. I did a full retrofit on my Honda CBR (motorcycle) with sweet results and relatively cost efficient.

**If you use a kit, you will not only loose your high beam, but like others have shown, you will scatter light in everyone elses eyes. At best you'll get a nice ticket and at worst you'll cause an accident.

Here are my suggestions based on my retrofit:
- Do your research. HiDPlanet.com :: Index has a great forum that will teach you all you need to know about good HID retrofitting.
- Purchase a pair of bi-xenon projectors, bulbs, ballasts and harnesses. The bi-xenon projectors are what allows you to keep your high-beam. All you need are ones that will fit in the housing. Take the halogen bulb out and stick a measuring tape in there but I think we have plenty of room to mess with.
- Do not purchase bulbs greater than 6000 Kelvin. The reason for this is that it's proven that visibility drops way down the higher the temp of the bulb. This is why most car manufacturers use 4300 Kelvin ... and probably the same reason that God made the sun to be around that temperature... I suppose that's another conversation.
- If you take your time retrofitting is a lot of fun and has AWESOME results.
- There is a point of no return on this project because you will have to remove the reflector and make some modifications to mount the projector.

Finally it always annoys me when people take pictures of their results out on the road. That's nice and all but the real test for good results is by taking pictures up against a wall. That way it's easy to see how crisp your cutoff is.

If I wasn't getting married in a month and a half I would totally drop the $150-200 to do this project.

[boelle]

just to bring something back from the dead, it can be done if you have some DIY skills:

How to retrofit HID projector to MX6 headlight - Mazda MX6 Forums: MX6 Forum

it's a mazda, but the basics are there, lucky us the lens is allready clear

[jf_cole]

Have a kit on my car, light is far FAR brighter and better. Its 95% OK and not annoying people, but just as I come to pass cars, just for a moment I can see that a bit of light scatter is hitting their face for a moment. Nobody has flashed me or anything in the 12 or so months I've had them in. Car looks far more modern with them on too.

[02insight]

do the HID's also use less power? Because I have heard they do. In that case it would also be beneficial for MPG, because I have noticed that at night, if my battery is a little low, when I turn the regular headlights on, it will do a 3 bar charge while I drive. I am wondering if this is because of the load of the regular headlights using alot of watts.

Anybody with HID's still have this forced charging with the lights on?

[boelle]

True HID's does use less, there is no fillment like a normal halogen, but there will be an arch like when you weld.. if anything it does use the same power during the inital startup to create the arch, but less power is required to maintain it.. that's more or less the basic's as i know it, might be wrong thou

[60MPG]

HID is 35 watts vs 55 for regular bulbs per light. It's not a huge save, but if you use HID with LED on all your other lights, that might be saving you can feel, especally it auto stop at night.