HID kits(microimage in particular)??

[4x4Dragon]

Please, please, please....... someone who's mature and responsible enough to actually have put in HID's for the correct reason(increasing output), please post pics or at least detailed comments on the output, specifically re: beam pattern/glare/cut-off.

I'm about to pull out my hair from all the searching i've done to only come up with 'cavemen' who have taken pictures looking head-on into the headlight housings themselves showing NOTHING useful except the color tint of the light and that's assuming the 'caveman' got their white balance set correctly in their camera in the first place. (i'm referring to cavemen hear with the mental picture of a caveman starting fire for the first time and probably grunting in surprise that looking directly at the flame is actually quite bright and hot.....DUH!!)

I have found some output pictures with projectors but I would like to see the output with the stock housings. hereagain i think there is a couple of these out there but the few that I found, the user admitted to not having them aimed correctly.

please, someone out there with an HID kit(preferably MicroImage's)and stock housings and proper aiming, help me out! Thank you

[cali yaris]

This my opinion.

There is not much "aiming" to do with the HID+stock housings, really. The stock set up is reflective (the light is bounced off the back of the headlight housing), and because of this, there is no "cutoff" either. That is a phrase reserved for projectors.

You ARE going to increase glare if you switch to HID's in the stock headlight. How much more is subjective and will not show up in pictures. Maybe others can post their experiences and that will be helpful to you.

[thebarber]

Originally Posted by cali yaris

This my opinion.

There is not much "aiming" to do with the HID+stock housings, really. The stock set up is reflective (the light is bounced off the back of the headlight housing), and because of this, there is no "cutoff" either. That is a phrase reserved for projectors.

You ARE going to increase glare if you switch to HID's in the stock headlight. How much more is subjective and will not show up in pictures. Maybe others can post their experiences and that will be helpful to you.

^^what he said...+/-

best light output comes from a more oem-looking HID colour.

I have 10000k in our aveo right now and 4300k in the yaris....4300k is hands-down better. the light colouring and illumination of the 4300k makes it easy to see at night vs the blue/purple of the 10000k's

[4x4Dragon]

I know halogen and HID are two completely different animals but being that they are both subject to the reflective housing design, would the 'glare' really increase that much/bad? My personal opinion is that the yaris reflectors do a good job at cutting the light output at the top..... yes I know its not an absolute 'cutoff' but its pretty well controllled compared to others.
Noticed this even more last night while sitting in a drivethru and there was a quite nice line from my light output on the brick wall..... and it followed the line in the bricks quite well.

Re: color temp..... 4300k all the way for me!

[cali yaris]

Remember, color is not consistent across companies. My 6000k kits are pure white, I think they look great. Barber's 4300k ones look about the same to me, and they also look great.

I know halogen and HID are two completely different animals but being that they are both subject to the reflective housing design, would the 'glare' really increase that much/bad?

Yes with HIDs there will be a more glare than with Halogen bulbs.

[thebarber]

Originally Posted by cali yaris

HIDs there will be a more glare than with Halogen bulbs.

agreed

Originally Posted by cali yaris

color is not consistent across companies.

agreed

[cali yaris]

woo hoo -- [high fives barber]

post count +1

[SAV912]

Originally Posted by 4x4Dragon

I know halogen and HID are two completely different animals but being that they are both subject to the reflective housing design, would the 'glare' really increase that much/bad? My personal opinion is that the yaris reflectors do a good job at cutting the light output at the top..... yes I know its not an absolute 'cutoff' but its pretty well controllled compared to others.
Noticed this even more last night while sitting in a drivethru and there was a quite nice line from my light output on the brick wall..... and it followed the line in the bricks quite well.

Re: color temp..... 4300k all the way for me!

The glare increase will happen. The Yaris (and any other housing that didn't come with HID bulbs already in it) was designed for halogen lamps, and 'cut off' or minimizing glare will be inferior to the stock or OEM replacement bulbs. The bottom line is that the HID bulb sits in the housing differently, illuminates differently, and throws the light to the mirrors in the back of the housing differently, and aside from retrofitting HID projectors, anything you try to do to minimize these shortcomings will just be a bandaid instead of a true fix. The 'cavemen' here changing to HIDs without doing any research are the ones that are going to be getting the finger from cars coming at them and the cars sitting directly in front of them.

Poorly aimed or extreme colors (your typical 8000K-12000K blues/purples and the 30000K greens) are going to result in less actual illumation of the road in front of you, regardless of how bright they look. The brightness of the bulb is thrown all over the place in a halogen housing, resulting in less light on the road, and more of it being needlessly burned in the air. The best case senario is proper projector retrofits, and 4300K-5500K temperatures. That temp range is the closest to natural white light, and thus most able to be detected by the human eye's sensitivity to light range.

Now if all of that falls on deaf ears, by all means. Join the line of "HAY GUISE, CHEK OUT MY NOOB BLUE/GREEN HIDS, YO!!1 THEY MAD TITE!!" peons that throw lights together to look cool, but it's a pretty long line here at YarisWorld already. You seem like you've got a good head on your shoulders though, so I trust you won't show up tomorrow with green headlights.

-SAV

[Lil Abner]

I was just going to say what SAV912 said. Halogen reflector bowls are designed for halogen bulbs. HID bulbs output the light totally different, requiring a different reflector design.

I did a custom projector retrofit in my LB (larger projector than MI one) because I wanted to run HID's, and I wanted to run them correctly. I used 5000K D2S base bulbs, which are what I consider pure white. As thebarber and cali yaris say, different manufacturers means the color differs.

Personal opinion, take the time to retrofit projectors in your car. You will thank yourself in the end! And if you are too scared to toss your headlights in the oven, I'm sure there are forum members around here who can help.

[4x4Dragon]

i knew about the whole reflector/design thing being for halogen vs. HID but figured that maybe us Yaris owners got lucky in that maybe the housings/reflectors as a fluke worked ok/good with both. (hey!, it could happen :) ) well i guess i'm just gonna stick to increasing my output through halogen then as I just can't be putting hundreds of dollars in lighting.

I'm thinking i'll get some foglights and then perhaps experiment with some different headlight bulbs(NOT ricey blue ones of course) perhaps going as far as upgrading the harness and maybe running slightly higher wattage. with the bulbs, i'm probably willing so go for a bulb set that has life span of at least a year and that does't exceed $30 roundabout. right now i'm looking at 3: Osram Silverstars, GE Nighthawks, Phillips VisionPlus. okay, maybe 4 as I see that powerbulbs.com has their own bulbs, buy one get one pair free at $30 is quite tempting.

[thebarber]

i was in front of our aveo with 10000k hid's in it this evening....the glare wasnt bad, really

i had hid's in my oem headlights for about 10months before i switched to the depot headlights w/ projectors (which i immediately put HID's in)

oem and 5000k


depots and 4300k

[.Kevin.]

4500k PIAA bulbs from Toyota

[cali yaris]

First of all you could support your YW vendor and buy NOKYA bulbs and harnesses from me.

next:

i'm just gonna stick to increasing my output through halogen then as I just can't be putting hundreds of dollars in lighting.

What would cost hundreds of dollars? Even my projector retrofit kit is less than $200.

[.Kevin.]

Lol garm sells quality and it's not cheap but affordable decent pricing, the guy does have to make a profit.

Remember things are what they are for a reason.

[Kaotic Lazagna]

iirc, Garm doesn't actually get that much profit off of the parts he sells to us. He tries to pass as much savings to us as possible.

[Kioshi]

4x4Dragon - I'm nit picky about having quality products, not on me, but on my car....

The HID Garm sells is worth it, seal off the little rectangle hole on the bottom of the HID bulb holder, and you are golden...no tickets from the police and middle fingers from strangers.

The kit is literally less than $100 and in the lifespan of the halogen bulbs..you would be spending that amount regardless within 1.5 to 1 year...and the bulbs cost around $30-40 from Kragen....might as well up your spending and go with something that will actually SAVE you money in the long run...

Do it right the first time, instead of wasting time....as someone once told me~

EDIT: You drive a Bayou Blue color....Garm's 6000k kit will look gorgeous on that color, trust me. I bought his kit Dec 2009, not a single problem or dimming of the lights..
Before his kit, i had $69.99 5100k halogen bulbs...guess what? One burnt out somehow in 8 months..waste of money and lesson learned.

[4x4Dragon]

Originally Posted by cali yaris

First of all you could support your YW vendor and buy NOKYA bulbs and harnesses from me.

next:


What would cost hundreds of dollars? Even my projector retrofit kit is less than $200.

Easy there garm. Your harness, I've considered.... when I'm ready to upgrade the harnesses but I may want to do a full harness upgrade with relays etc. like Daniel sterns'(the lighting guru). I'm just not there yet though. Also, I'm just not sure of a brand such as Nokya and especially not keen of colored bulbs.

I'm not saying that your HID kit and projectors are too expensive... but for now I may be happy with a slight improvement from some Osram Silverstars that I've found for less than $20/pair. As long as I get at least a year out of them ill be doing good.

Besides, money spent on a full HID retrofit could instead be used on springs which I will be ordering from MI, plus something else possibly.

[cali yaris]

^ I tried those Silverstars and was unimpressed. Others might have had a better review, though. Let us know how they work out for you!

On pricing, for everyone's information.
Nokya Cosmic White H4 bulbs: $15.99 a pair. And I don't charge for shipping.