HID and fog lamps

The fog lights seem to be next to useless. The HIDs seems OK, but not as strong as other vehicles.

/Jim

 

Ditto what others have said about the fog lights. They are for looks only.

I've got an '05 with HIDs and I love them. I travel enough back roads that I worry about animals jumping out in front of me. The "high beams" travel well over 300 ft (my best guess), which is hopefully enough distance to spot a pair of eyes before its too late.

Dave

 

I have them and glad I do, but I agree with flynz4

 

I like them all for looks, but I don't think you get too much performance out of either above the ordinary. I might try replacing my Fogs with the same "yellow" lights used in the Lexus Fogs.

 

I think the HID's are decent on the Prius. I feel much more confident driving at night with the HID's. The fog lamps are not worth it though. But, if I recall correctly, if you want HID's, the fogs come with the package.

 

I really like the HID's, never use the foglamps...I'm not sure if they're brighter, but I like the "whiter" light.

 

My new 2005 has HID lights - and I am so glad I got them. I have bad night vision and one of the first things I noticed this week as I drove home after dark was how much easier it was to see the road. It is not just an increase in distance, but, also being able to see to the left and right of the car with ease.

Springtime

 

There is a thread somewhere on PriusChat about how to upgrade the fog lights to something useful!

 

Here's some good info on fog lights in general. Also click on what he has to say about HID conversions.

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/li.../fog_lamps.html

 

Do the HID lamps have a bluish color to anyone viewing them from an oncoming lane? I have seen some cars with bluish looking headlights (sometimes they have more of a bluish color from certain angles than others) but when I read about
the prius' headlights I wondered if they had that bluish color to them for oncoming traffic.

 

Compared to our 01 Prius without HID, I found the HID on the 06 genuinely helpful. The fog lamps add a little illumination to the foreground. They are not very useful unless the situation is just right, but that's how they are supposed to behave. They should be kept off most of the time.

 

Yes the HIDs are very blue, it's the nature of the technology. Think of Mercury Vapor lighting, but HID is different somehow.

Dittos what the others have said re: the HID and the fogs.

 

I have the HID headlights, and converted the fogs on my 2006 to HID also. They are much more effective now.

 

"Mercury vapor" and "metal halide" are both types of high-intensity discharge lighting systems used in fixed lamp applications. I'm not sure of the exact nature of the Prius' HID headlamps, but I suspect xenon. The idea in all cases is to use a high voltage (>20KV) to excite a gas or metal vapor to produce light. The HID headlights use less energy and produce more light than the halogen bulb headlamps that are also available. The fog lights are halogen.

Optional mods are replacing the halogen bulbs and fixtures in the foglights with HID (an expensive option), like DocVijay did, replace the regular halogens with "blue" halogens so the color is more similar to the HID headlights, and installing a diode so the foglights can be operated independently of the headlights.

 

The HIDs essentially render the fog lights useless.

In the conditions where you need a good set of fog lights, the HIDs will be reflecting so much light off the fog back into your eyes that it's impossible for the fog lighs to do anything useful. May as well turn them into some colored disco lights.

 

I agree with the previous posters about the usefulness of the Prius' foglights.

On a related note, my 06's HIDs are aimed too low. There is a distinct line where even the high beams end on the road ahead of me, and because of their brightness, I feel as though I am blind beyond that line (which is nowhere near far enough out). Anyone else notice this on their car? How hard are these fancy headlights to aim?

:EDIT:

Ok, on the way to work this morning in a bit of fog, I think the fog lamps are useful. They did a good job of illluminating the center line and the fog line, without illuminating the fog. HID aim still sucks, though. My wife's Volvo's halogens are much better/brighter than these HIDs in their current configuration.

 

If you use them as fog lights. Many people have posted that the factory fog light setup is pretty useless in fog too though.

Because of this, I took the initiative to convert them to HID and now I use them as driving lights, a task they perform much better at.

Now my question is that as I am the ONLY person so far to have actually converted their fogs to HID, how is that you all know so much about it? My personal experience is that my HID "fogs" actually perform just fine in fog. The amount of light is not as much of an issue as the pattern of the beam of light being emitted. Even witht he HID bulbs installed, the setup of the reflector/shield keps the factory beam pattern, and only makes it brighter and whiter.

Sorry to dissapoint all the nay-sayers, but the HID conversion was the best thing I could have done to my fog lights. Now they are actually functional.

 

You could have the best fog lights in the world and it wouldn't matter on a Prius with HID headlights because the headlights render the fog lights useless.

I've got to ask - how many of you know what heavy fog looks like? I grew up in the central San Joaquin Valley in California, and we regularly would have school delays or cancellations because the fog was too heavy to safely walk (or drive) to school. I've driven in fog so heavy that I had to open my door and look down to see the yellow line, and use that to keep me on the road, as it was impossible to see beyond the end of the hood. In that kind of fog, when you really need good fog lights, the brightness of the HID headlights makes it impossible to see anything. What is really needed is a way to turn off the headlights and drive with only your fog and parking lights.

IMHO, if you ever find your Prius fog lights doing anything useful on a HID-equipped Prius, you probably didn't really need your fog lights anyway.