That's exactly right. Mweiss, you are quite wrong; your headlights are not safer or better with "HID kits" installed, no matter how much you want to believe otherwise. "HID kits" in halogen-bulb headlamps simply do not work safely or effectively, which is why they are illegal. See here. Bad headlamps remain bad headlamps no matter what bulb is installed; high-wattage or wrong-type (HID) bulbs in badly-engineered halogen headlights do not make the light better, they amplify all the problems caused by the bad engineering.
Ford has long considered itself the American leader in lighting. I personally think they're full of it, though at last we have been seeing some good lighting on American Ford products in the last few years. They're still cheaping out on a lot of their vehicles with 9007 and H13 combination high/low beam lights not engineered or built to produce a particularly well focused beam pattern. And they still install ridiculously thin headlight wiring on a lot of their vehicles, too.
HIDs should neither be banned nor mandated. They should be properly regulated. And guess what, the Europeans are thinking of creating a ~20w HID bulb and ballast system producing 2000 lumens, specifically to circumvent the ECE Regulation 48 requirement that headlamps containing low-beam light sources producing more than 2000 lumens be equipped with automatic levelling and lens cleaning systems. They say they want to do this so as to make it easier (less $$) for automakers to offer HID headlights and thereby extend the safety benefit of HID headlights to less expensive cars. But we have very recent, very good quality data (and it's even from the United States!) clearly demonstrating that the lack of automatic levelling creates very substantial safety performance deficits in all headlights, not just HID lights. That strongly suggests a large part of the safety benefit of HIDs is attributable to the automatic levelling. So I think the European effort to sidestep the auto levelling requirement would be a step in the wrong direction. Much better to require that all headlights be equipped with auto levelling.
Dual beam headlights (combination high/low beam) should not be banned. Bad headlights should be banned, i.e., both the US and ECE headlight regulations should be tightened up to reduce the allowances both regulations contain for bad headlights. There are good dual-beam headlights, y'know, and there are bad single-beam (high-only or low-only) headlights. Good headlights are better than bad headlights, period. Halogen, xenon, LED, dual-beam, single-beam...doesn't matter. Good lights are good, bad lights are bad.
Not necessarily, no. I can't think of any H13 headlights I think super highly of, but it's a better bulb than 9007 and it is possible to create a good beam pattern with an H13 bulb. It's challenging, and much harder than if Ford and Sylvania hadn't perpetrated yet another one of their "The stupid Europeans and Asians can go screw themselves; we Americans know best" jobs; the European/Asian proposal for the new double-filament bulb, the "DFCS", would have greatly facilitated the creation of really good dual-beam headlights, but it got shouted down by Ford and Sylvania. Same team who gave us at least six other big, stinky turds in the headlight world.
There are some very good H4 headlights, but there are an awful lot of really lousy ones, too. You need a big reflector to get decent performance out of an H4 on low beam, because you're only able to use a little over half the reflector/lens area (due to the big filament shield).
9003 = H4, so the comments above apply. There are good and rotten 9003 headlights. 9004 is a pathetic mess, and 9007 is only moderately better -- both of those are Ford's "better ideas".
There have been some good sealed beams, and there have been a lot of bad ones. Again (and again and again): Good lights are good, bad lights are bad. There's nothing inherent in the sealed beam concept that prevents making a good sealed beam. As with most other engineered products, the result depends on the goals: Do you want a good headlight, a cheap headlight, a pretty headlight...? Don't dismiss the concept just because so many of the implementations have been ****-poor. The concept itself has a lot going for it: The front of the car is a very severe environment. Sealed headlights make a lot of sense because they're resistant to water and dirt entry (and to tampering by dumbnuts kidzzz putting in blue 100w bulbs and "HID kits"...).
That is a very good question!
It's either for or against, otherwise there are no windmills to battle!
