I recently purchased a full HID retrofit kit that is still sitting in the box. It included projectors, bulbs, wiring, ballasts, the whole shebang. I'm starting to have second thoughts about it. I purchased it for $240 from lightwerks with their december discount (originally $300). I figured that was an amazing deal which led to my decision to go with it, that and the OEM halogens being lackluster in performance. I recently stumbled upon PIAA's "Xtreme white" line of high performance Halogen bulbs. While I know they will never be HIDs, they claim near HID performance. The pull of doing that is saving $100+. Have any of you guys had this dillemma? I'm telling myself I should do the HID retrofit and know that I have the best form of illumination available, but my frugal side is telling me that I should return the kit and by the cheaper PIAAs and use the money saved towards a downpipe... Help?
My JDM projectors I got for my 96 outback came with the PIAA extreme white 55w bulbs in them. They are a pretty decent bulb but no where near as bright as the 35w 5000k ddm tuning raptor HID kit I put in them. I would do the retrofit, you will be disappointed in the PIAA's.
Well, I just found that Lightwerkz doesn't do returns on retrofits so I'm SOL. Thanks for the suggestion though! EDIT: Mods go ahead and lock if you'd like
There's no way a standard bulb will be nearly as bright as a HID. Standard bulbs are around 1000-1200 lumens. HIDs can get over 3000. There's only so much they can do with what they have to work with by law. PIAA is all marketing just like american Silverstars. Do yourself a favor and send LightWerkz a note asking for their thoughts on the two.
i had the same dilema, the problem with the ultra bright bulbs, or +50 or +75 is that the filaments are VERY fragile, i had so many go out on me it was costing me a small fortune to replace them all the time. Go HID, you wont regret it. What car is your retro fit for?
2010 WRX Sedan. I'm going to do it here when it warms up a bit. I'll make sure to post pics of the end result. I plan on doing angel eyes too... ^^unless that's lame
