Guess what turned up in the post today...

Yes that's how my halogen headlight assemblies came, but they were pushed in to wrap around the H4 bulb electrical connection. You have to push them out in order to have them accommodate the motor for the hi/lo function of the HID bulbs.

 

The credit really goes to Bronze84 and BritPrius they found them and tried them first.
I've been wanting to upgrade to HID, but was worried about glare, and blinding other drivers or installation headaches / having to splice wires etc.

I've seen many cheap versions on eBay or super $300+ kits on the web.
This kit seems quality built, and for an overseas company (UK) they had lightning fast shipping, everything was packaged well and arrived in perfect condition. Installation was rather easy, just time consuming to remove both headlight assemblies. Everything was plug and play. I provided my own zip ties, electrical tape, and the project 7 tube for protecting the connections, but other than that everything was included, and the installation was straight forward.

I'll try and take some pictures in the dark against a wall. The sun is still coming up early and going down late on the east coast, but I'll try and figure something out to get better pictures of the HID cutoff.

 

Installed the 35w H4-3 Bi Xenon HID 4300 Kit today and I love it! Install was rather painless and followed what Daves09Prius posted on page 5 really helped.




HALOGEN LOW


HID LOW


HALOGEN HIGH


HID HIGH


BULBS INSTALLED (Notice the shield under the bulb that directs light up into the reflector housing which then throws the light down on the road reducing glare)


VIDEO

 

Well my luck ran out. One of my ballasts has gone out and I have a free one on the way from the Ebay seller in the UK so I'm running halogen again.

I did however notice something odd during the bulb change and that is the reflector above the HID bulb appears to be burnt? At first I thought this was condensation, but it is not. I don't know if this is a result of UV exposure from the HID bulbs or what, but I have a feeling it is. See picture below. Anyway, once I get the new ballasts I'm going to be watching this "burn" area to see if it's getting worse and if so I'll be removing the HID kit.

 

You obviously did not heed my warning. I know what I am talking about here, and this is why cheap bulbs should not be used.

From the thread I linked you to earlier that you ignored:

Glass Chambers: You are putting your health at risk and your projectors' chrome lining with cheap bulbs. Not only do the cheap bulbs burn hotter because of less salt, they burn more unstable. The plasma also radiates extremely intense UV rays along with other nasties. If you look at a good bulb you will see an inner chamber made of high temperature glass and an outer chamber sealed by a vacuum made of lower temperature glass but high UV blocking properties. Cheap manufacturers either use low quality outer shielding or some leave it off altogether to save costs. If you ran this bulb and stood infront of the bulb you would get a severe sunburn. Similar things can happen with cracked glass chambers even on high quality bulbs. So there is the obvious health hazard, but to get to the chrome hazards, when it gets too hot the chrome will bubble. When the chrome bubbles, you get uneven spreads and hotspots at best and ignition/fire at worst. Remember you aren't dealing with grandma's bulbs. These are high voltage, high current, and extremely high output lights.

Read more: http://priuschat.com/threads/not-all-hid-bulbs-are-created-equal.101472/#ixzz2mROIDIIN
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I may have spoke too soon with regards to the UV reflector issue as there may not have been an issue after all. I just took the light housings off, removed the bulbs (back to Halogen) and out of curiosity I ran a clean towel inside the housing on the reflector where that "burn" appeared. Sure enough it wiped right off and is perfectly smooth again. I don't know what was on the reflectors, but it was NOT burned. It came off as if it was moisture of sorts. Any idea what it may have been? Either way I'm very happy that it was not a UV burn issue or heat issue, but will certainly be keeping an eye on this even with the Halogens.

Before


After

 

Thanks. You are correct in that I did not heed your warning. Actually I never read your post until today. Not sure how I missed that! Anyway, your advice is being taken seriously (i'm feeling paranoid) and I'm wondering what to do as I really really don't want to stick with Halogens again. I like to see well at night and I certainly don't plan on driving the Lexus IS-F daily, which has great lights. So what are your thoughts on doing a retrofit? Are there people out there that can do a retrofit for me if I supply them with the parts needed? I not only have zero experience in retrofitting, but I also have limited time and not ready to upgrade to a newer Prius "yet".

I also just read the thread titled "not all hid bulbs are created equal" and wow what a TON of information!!! In addition to that thread I also checked out the theRetrofitSource.com site.

 

I have seen this blackening effect with halogen bulbs. It is caused by convection currents within the headlamp often made worse by poor or no sealing of the headlamp, "common with Prius headlamps" often causing condensation within trapping fine dust particles that stick to the reflector when it is dried out by the lamp . Exactly the same effect can be seen in domestic lighting situations where the bulb is a relatively short distance from a ceiling or shelf directly over the bulb.
The heat output of any HID lamp will be lower than the same wattage halogen. The temperature and heat output of the light source are not the same thing.
One watt of electrical power converted directlyto heat is equal to 3.41 Btu/hr. Since the HID bulb converts more electrical energy to light than halogen bulbs the heat output must be less. Not withstanding this the HID wattage is close to half that of the halogen bulbs normally fitted "33 watts for the HID, 60 watts for the halogen", meaning that even if the HID bulb was no more efficient than the halogen bulb at converting electricity to light "and it clearly is" the heat output would still be close to half that of the halogen.

John (Britprius)

 

I installed my HID kit on May 1, 2013 and they stopped working today, Monday, January 12, 2015. 1 year and 8 months isn't bad for a $67 HID kit! The Phillips x-treeme or silver star ultras cost just the same amount and only last 4 to 6 months. I'd say this kit was worth the investment. Now I'm trying to decide to go with an Hi/Lo LED conversion kit or purchase another HID kit from the same seller... I installed new standard halogen bulbs for now, so that I have working headlights, but plan on getting rid of them as soon as possible!

 

Does anyone have any thoughts or experience with this LED Headlight kit? It totally looks plug and play, without any additional wiring.

White 6000K H4 HB2 9003 CREE LED Dual Beam Replace Conversion Head Light Bulb 1x | eBay

 

I haven't but I've read where user love the color output but are disappointed with the lumens and beam pattern. Just do a retrofit like I did.

 

+1 On the true retrofit. Mine were installed about 75K+ miles and 5 years ago. The car was driven for 5-6 hours a day as a delivery driver, 4-5 days a week ontop of normal home/school/work/errands driving. The headlights are on anytime the car is on and both headlights are the original from the retrofit. Even my angel eyes are working still.

 

My recent retrofit..

 

I know an HID retrofit is the best way to go... but really need a "plug and play" option right now. Something just as easy as switching out a new set of bulbs, so I went for the LED option. I'm going to try it and see how it goes. I ordered the lights from Amazon, this style LED: White 6000K H4 HB2 9003 CREE LED Dual Beam Replace Conversion Head Light Bulb 1x | eBay I'd post the Amazon listing, but priuschat blocks amazon for some reason... I removed the metal shields, and have installed the bulbs. I had to trim the plastic on the upper part of the headlight assembly. They would have fit perfectly, if the sires came out of the bulb base at the 6 O'clock position, but the wires come out of the bulb at the 12 o'clock position, which is blocked by part of plastic. I trimmed that away and got the bulbs installed. I'll post pictures later. We'll see how these perform.

 

Okay here is my review of the LED headlights. The color was great, the light output was about average, I'd say comparable to the Phillips eXtreem lights I use to use. The lights worked for about 6 hours, and then I started having problems. The Passenger side headlight bulb would only work intermittently. It wouldn't turn on at first, but then would turn on after about 5 minutes of driving. When the Passenger bulb wouldn't work, the drivers headlight would only project high-beam, no matter what I did inside the car (Hi or Lo beam from the control stick by the steering wheel) the driver's headlight would only project high-beam. When the passenger side bulb would turn on, then both headlights would switch between the high/low-beam properly.

I checked the wire connections, fuses, the relay, and swapped position of the bulbs. When I switched the bulb locations, the problem followed the bulb, so my best guess is the issue is with the bulb (or internal subcomponent of the bulb assembly.)

I plan on returning these (thank goodness for Amazon Prime) and ordering the same HID kit I use to have, (the same HID kit discussed in this thread) but now I'm going to try the 6000k color.

 

I vote for some time and $ spent on a new retrofit! you can doooo it!... in the meantime ya, go back to the HID kit. Much more lumens from the HID kits for the $ at this point....but someday..

 

Thanks, Justdidit. I've ordered a new HID kit (same seller on eBay) Color 6000 Kelvin this time.
I'll start researching what I need to buy for a retrofit that I'll work on sometime in the future.