HID Add-On

Hi.. I'm trying to remember what the salesman told us about the HIDs .We asked specifically 'cause we would have liked to have had them. I tried to reach him tonight but no luck.. the person who answered thought there was a problem with DRL's in Canada and HIDs and thats why they are not offered as an option up here????? :wink:

 

'05 Prius uses 9003 (H4) as high/low beam as well as 9006 as fog.

You will need an "HID conversion kit" to convert them from halogen into HID. This involves changing the halogen bulbs into HID capsules (direct plug-in), as well as the installation of 2x 35W HID ballasts somewhere in your hood. Such kit typically runs you around $300 USD.

 

The problem with adding HID to the Canadian market Prius has to do with the fact it's a two headlight system, so the DRL will stop working.

The HID is a gas-discharge lamp that needs a converter to generate high voltage to make the arc. Since DRL supplies lower voltage to the headlight, you could damage the converter.

Lexus Canada does offer HID on a number of their products, but in all cases it's a four headlight system, with HID on the low beams. The high beams are used as DRL, running at reduced voltage.

With the regular halogen lamps, once you get the headlights properly aimed, the illumination is excellent. Mine cover a nice wide area, with very sharp cutoff, on low beam. On high beam, the reach is quite excellent, with good intensity.

 

You would also have to disable the DRL, which is illegal on Canadian market vehicles.

 

Sounds like a lot of work / expense for questionable gain. Have you had a chance to ride in a car or SUV with HID?

I've gone for a ride a few times with a friend who has a 2003 Chrysler Pacifica, with the HID low beams. I really couldn't see any overall difference, except the beam cutoff was so sharp and low it was very annoying. Sure, the light was "whiter" but not necessarily brighter.

Some folks have invested +$600 PER light for Hella HID driving lights. Properly aimed, they claim the light reaches +3km, but at the first sign of oncoming traffic, they must turn them off.

That appears to be the big problem: any light that truly lights up the road for you will also blind oncoming traffic.

I've noticed that Crappy Tire (Canadian Tire) offers DRL kits for older vehicles. Perhaps you could figure out which relay is for DRL and run the auxiliary DRL off that?

 

Is it legal to run DRL on parking lights in Canada? The new 4Runner here in the US all run DRL on parking lights only, neither low nor high beam. Actually now I remember my friend's '02 4Runner which used to have DRL & HID conversion kit installed. Every time he started the engine, only 1 out of 2 HID low beam comes on initially, he needed to wait a while before both fired up properly. The installers ended up defeating his DRL altogether which he never really fancied any way. Glad that you brought this up.

 

Once with HID, always with HID

My '98 4Runner came w/ stock halogen low beam. A friend of mine literally 'forced' me to convert them to 6000K H4 (H/L) HID about 4 years ago as HID was never high up on my modification list (I supercharged the 4Runner and was going to get exhaust upgrade, fuel delivery upgrade, smaller s/c pulley, shocks, all those performance stuff prior to HID). Remember, this was the world's first mechanical H4 H/L kit too and that was why it cost $800 USD and you can understand why I hesitated so much to get them.

To make a story short, once you've driven w/ HID, you nearly never want to drive w/ halogen ever again. My HID was made by Catz, which later on went out of biz & one of my 2 capsules burned. I emailed their Japanese HQ for replacement parts and they ignored me. So I was forced to revert back to halogen. I even used Polarg white bulbs which supposedly output 2x the intensity as stock halogen. I tell ya, I missed the HID so much every single night. They are substantially brighter & whiter for me. Everything looks much better and more natural. So once I sourced this replacement capsule, I converted them back to HID in a heartbeat.

This is taken from the Sylvania site HID section:

Once with HID, always with HID.
In 1997, the renowned opinion research institute Emnid carried out a survey among drivers whose vehicles were equipped with xenon light. The results of this survey speak for themselves:

94% of all xenon users have a positive opinion of xenon light, the main features mentioned were brightness (42 %) and general illumination (35 %).
85% of all xenon users feel they could see better at night, with the age-group over 50 this figure even rose to 90 %.
83% of all xenon users would order their next car with xenon light again.
80% of all xenon users feel they can see better in the rain using xenon light.
75% of all xenon users state that the wider illumination of the road creates more safety for cyclists and pedestrians.
64% of all xenon users consider xenon light to be so good that it should be made standard for all vehicles.
61% of all xenon users feel safer with xenon light.

I understand that you don't like the sharp cutoff generated by HID beams. You will NOT get that in the Prius. The sharp cutoff are typical effect of projector-style HID housing. We don't have that on the Prius. Ours is the reflector-style. My '05 Prius comes w/ factory HID and I don't see a sharp cutoff. If any one of you Prius HID owner sees otherwise, please correct me.

I examined the Prius halogen as well as HID factory housings carefully and they are identical EXCEPT:

1) In the external & lower portion of the HID housing, there is a space to accomodate the HID ballast.
2) In the orifice area where the bulb/capsule goes, of course that it differs: Halogen housing fits H4 bulb while HID housing fits D2R capsules.

Other than the above, the housings between the 2 are identical. This is of significance regarding blinding oncoming traffic. If my speculation is correct and that the stock halogen Prius housing is identical to their HID counterpart in terms of the reflective surface & shape, converting halogen into HID *should* not generate dangerous glare as bad as in most halogen housings. But there is only one way to find out; that is to actually do it & see the result. One way or the other, adjusting the beam level post-conversion is of utmost importance.

To conclude this lengthy post, I suggest Tideland Prius to sit in an HID-equipped Prius and see the difference for himself. If he senses no difference, save the money & trouble & stay with his halogen. If he senses the difference as much as I do, maybe HID is something that he should reconsider.

Edward

 

I must disagree on the Sharp Cutoff issue.

My Prius HID Low Beams have the most dramatic cutoff I have ever seen.

 

the Prius HID system is very complex, it includes a sensor on the rear axle assy that calculates the load in the car and then send a signal to the motor driven headlight adjuster to set the point of aim for the HID's so they don't blind oncoming traffic. So if you normally don't carry a lot of load (people) in the car and then fill the back seat be prepared to get flashed if you convert to after market HID replacement bulb/transformer setup. Some things aren't as simple as they seem.

 

But when compared to Audi, BMW & Mercedes's projector-style HID low beam, I think their cutoff is even more dramatic...

 

What can I say.

We disagree.

 

It is very similar to the typical European headlights.

 

they have a manual adjuster but they are automatically aimed by an electric motor and a gear train to an adjsuter inside the headlight unit on the bulb holder. The manual adjustment is to set the base setting from there on out it's automatically set via the load sensor.