Illegal or not, I am seeing many OEM retrofits executed quite well, often producing far less glare than OEM halogen headlamps with more brightness. Most of these are F150s and Silverados though.
Regardless of make, model, and trim level, there are no real decent "OEM retrofits" (unless you really mean that the complete headlamp assemblies from a "sister" car were mounted properly on the vehicle). When headlamps are "baked apart" and holes are cut in them and "OEM projectors" are squeezed in, that's not decent (and is not an "OEM retrofit"-- the term is something of an oxymoron, since it's not being done by the OEM, and if it were, it wouldn't be a "retrofit", merely a genuine replacement part).
Most people, when talking about "HID retrofits" and "OEM retrofits" typically head down the
Morimoto road. That's not a road anyone would want to go down. The brands and models vary, the poor quality (and non-compliance with any performance standards) does not.
Law enforcement tends not to bother anyone unless they are creating a problem somewhere.
The thing is, law enforcement may either not KNOW that a problem is being created somewhere (it is), and may lack the ability to very readily defend a ticket if they write one and would rather not bother. The easier fish, not the bigger fish, are what they go after (burned out lamps, speeding, expired tags). With HID being factory equipment on so many vehicles, unless it's just obvious to them that something's wrong, they'll probably just be happy the fool has headlamps at all. Besides-- just as your own eye might see these retrofits as "improvements", maybe they are also seeing it the same way and the little warning bells don't go off for them. It doesn't mean that the lights ARE an improvement, but that's the funny thing about how we process the things we see, or think we see, or don't know we are not seeing.
Fog lights also takes proper execution, but they help greatly when properly applied.
Sadly, on modern vehicles with decent, properly-adjusted headlamps, front fog lamps really don't help greatly at all-- at best, they will not be detrimental to night driving performance. Still, they're a common option on cars, and people who love having all the bells and whistles typically want them. (Heck, I know they're useless toys at best, but sometimes I think I *still* want them!)
The best fog lamp is a *rear* fog lamp (which is red, of course, since it's rear-facing), since they help prevent the somewhat common occurrence of rear-endings in the fog (when the person with *front* fog lamps thinks the lights magically enable them to see in thick fog at night exactly as well as they can see in broad daylight without any atmospheric disturbance).
Simply throwing lamps on the front of a vehicle is usually counter effective.
This is actually true.
There are so many ways to optimize your headlamps without spending a whole lot of money. The first two things are absolutely free: Make sure your windshield is clean, inside and out, and keep the dash lights dim.
Going from there, if you can get them aimed at a shop with an optical beamsetter (and by someone trained to use it) that will also help.
The headlamps themselves, especially on the 2005, may be quite degraded by now. If you can see the degradation (by looking at the lens and seeing yellowing or clouding), they're seriously degraded. Sadly, the only way to fix that is replacement with a genuine factory part. (Someday, when I have enough money to actually BUY a new car, I'm going to order another set of headlamps and store them in a cool, dry place.)
And, of course, installing relays (information
here) can be another great upgrade if testing bears out that your headlamps need them.
