HIDs burning out?

[PhillyRube]

OK, been retired from the PD 2 months now, so I haven't written any HID headlighters recently. I have noticed a lot of mismatched headlights, one HID and one hotwire, driving around. Not being an HID advocate, just wondering if the lifespan of these illegal add-ons are not what was advertised and the owners are finding out they are expensive to replace, if they can even get the replacement capsules.

 

[-Virgil-]

Your suspicion is largely correct. Take a look at this, in which an "HID kit" vendor tried to weasel out of their NHTSA spanking with lame excuses including "The kits we sold two years ago are probably mostly burned out by now anyways".

 

[Alaric Darconville]

Love how the guy used the Wayback Machine to bust them on their "for agricultural equipment only" claims. But, yeah, their defense consisting of "the product we told everyone was super high-quality is now all gone to the landfill" is pretty egregious, too.

Glad to see that the wheels of justice do continue to grind, if not slowly, thanks to industry experts and the "common man" alike. Hope we see more of this.

 

[-Virgil-]

NHTSA's painstaking care to describe The Wayback Machine strikes me as funny. I'm not sure why it should, but it does.

I'd like to see more bugs squashed like this, but yeah, faster would be good. I wonder if NHTSA is taking enforcement action against the "LED kits" now coming in.

 

[Alaric Darconville]

NHTSA's painstaking care to describe The Wayback Machine strikes me as funny. I'm not sure why it should, but it does.

Gives it more gravitas, maybe? Maybe a detail given by the submitter, so it'd be taken more seriously by the NHTSA (because, you know, a 501(3)(c) non-profit corporation is serious bidness!!!), and then they kept it in there for some reason.

I'd like to see more bugs squashed like this, but yeah, faster would be good. I wonder if NHTSA is taking enforcement action against the "LED kits" now coming in.

Well, supposin' a company were making a legitimate LED "kit" (well, for turn signals and such, anyway) and such unnamed company (cough, PHILIPS, cough) wanted to protect their marketshare, perhaps they'd nudge the NHTSA into investigating the non-legitimate "kits". Certainly for HEADLAMPS the NHTSA needs to act, and quickly. I see more of those stupid "bulbs" discussed every day.

 

[Alaric Darconville]

It WAS the in the submission:

From the NHTSA comment
With regard to their first claim, that the kits were "originally intended for sale to the agricultural community to be
placed on tractors and combines, for off-road vehicles, and for exhibition purposes", it is my opinion that this was not
their original intent, based on examining archived copies of their website using the "Wayback Machine" at
www.waybackmachine.org (a website maintained by the Internet Archive, a 501(3)(c) non-profit organization).

The earliest of these archived pages,
http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20070504132241/http://www.mobilehid.com/ (from
May 4, 2007) shows plainly on the banner "OFFERING HID KITS FOR ANY VEHICLE". This banner is not evident on
the snapshot of their site from February 21, 2008, but the site features a picture gallery showing various vehicles,
including a motorcycle, with these kits installed being operated on public roads, such these two:
http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20080221193924/http://www.mobilehid.com/sciontc.htm
http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20080211214410/http://www.mobilehid.com/2006-R1.htm

 

[-Virgil-]

Let's hear it for people who care enough to put this kind of effort into this kind of comment-to-the-government.

 

[Alaric Darconville]

The crowd goes WILD!

 

[viper37]

Not being an HID advocate, just wondering if the lifespan of these illegal add-ons are not what was advertised and the owners are finding out they are expensive to replace, if they can even get the replacement capsules.

HID kits are cheaper than ever. Bulbs and ballasts can be found as low as $15 online with any bulb base you desire. They're not going anywhere, if anything they're getting more popular.

 

[Alaric Darconville]

HID kits are cheaper than ever. Bulbs and ballasts can be found as low as $15 online with any bulb base you desire. They're not going anywhere, if anything they're getting more popular.

And they're just as dangerous-- and illegal-- as ever.
The availability of a product, and its ever-lowering price does not mean that it's a worthwhile product. I would only install them on my car under these conditions:

• You pay me $150,000 USD
• It's a car I buy from a scrapyard for this purpose
• Immediately after installation, I then have the car crushed and put the video up on youtube

Perhaps they're getting more popular because people are getting dumber. Maybe Idiocracy is actually a documentary!

 

[pauljmccain]

OK, been retired from the PD 2 months now, so I haven't written any HID headlighters recently. I have noticed a lot of mismatched headlights, one HID and one hotwire, driving around. Not being an HID advocate, just wondering if the lifespan of these illegal add-ons are not what was advertised and the owners are finding out they are expensive to replace, if they can even get the replacement capsules.

If you spend money on quality components, you will get good quality. 99% of components are terrible. The best aftermarket options are made by OEM manufacturers, and in most cases exceed OEM quality.

Cheap bulbs are probably more common these days than cheap ballasts. A cheap kit will last on average about 3 months.

Paul

 

[747LeftSeat]

If you spend money on quality components, you will get good quality. 99% of components are terrible. The best aftermarket options are made by OEM manufacturers, and in most cases exceed OEM quality.

Cheap bulbs are probably more common these days than cheap ballasts. A cheap kit will last on average about 3 months.

Paul

Why would an OEM manufacturer make an aftermarket part that exceeds the quality of its own OEM product?

 

[pauljmccain]

Why would an OEM manufacturer make an aftermarket part that exceeds the quality of its own OEM product?

An OEM manufacturer makes OEM parts for OEMs (car companies). An OEM manufacturer does not dictate OEM quality, the OEM does.

OEM manufacturers make more parts than just OEM parts. They also manufacture a large number of aftermarket products, which is a $90-billion USD industry. Whether it's brake pads, transmissions, or light bulbs, you can usually replace an OEM part with one of higher quality.

Sylvania is an OEM manufacturer (some OEMs use Sylvania bulbs from the factory) that also manufactures aftermarket products (Silverstar).

Paul

 

[-Virgil-]

Whether it's brake pads, transmissions, or light bulbs, you can usually replace an OEM part with one of higher quality. Sylvania is an OEM manufacturer (some OEMs use Sylvania bulbs from the factory) that also manufactures aftermarket products (Silverstar).

True, but Sylvania Silverstar bulbs are objectively inferior to OE Sylvania bulbs. Just because a product is marketed and promoted as being better than OE, does not necessarily mean it is.

If you spend money on quality components, you will get good quality. 99% of components are terrible. The best aftermarket options are made by OEM manufacturers, and in most cases exceed OEM quality.

This thread is about "HID kits" installed in halogen headlamps. In that realm, there are no "OEM-quality aftermarket options made by OEM manufacturers". Even if there were, "HID kits" are illegal throughout most of the world for reasons having nothing to do with who makes them or whether the maker also produces OE components.

 

[inetdog]

Because they can charge more for it than the manufacturer is willing to pay and build into the price of their product?

 

[747LeftSeat]

Because they can charge more for it than the manufacturer is willing to pay and build into the price of their product?

I have never come across an aftermarket ballast priced higher than an OEM ballast.

 

[pauljmccain]

This thread is about "HID kits" installed in halogen headlamps. In that realm, there are no "OEM-quality aftermarket options made by OEM manufacturers."

I am not discussing legality, as much as you love to. The original question was about quality in terms of reliability.

Yes, there are plenty of bulb and ballast options on the market which exceed OEM, by which I mean the equipment that is originally installed with the vehicle. If you're telling me there is no better alternative, in terms of reliability, than the factory-installed components, you clearly have no real knowledge about the industry.

Those same higher-quality components can be easily rebased and connectors modified for inclusion in an illegal HID Kit, making it extremely reliable.

EDIT: 99.9% of illegal HID Kits on the road are still complete crap and nowhere near OEM quality.

 

[pauljmccain]

I have never come across an aftermarket ballast priced higher than an OEM ballast.

There's a little something called "distribution." OEMs gotta make money!

 

[Alaric Darconville]

99.9% of illegal HID Kits on the road are still complete crap and nowhere near OEM quality.

Missed it by 1/10th of a percent. The correct answer is 100% of HID kits are complete crap and nowhere near OEM quality.

You can make a toilet seat out of the finest materials in the world, using the best-trained, most-motivated craftsmen, but if it ain't got a hole in it, it's junk. HID kits are essentially a toilet seat without a hole in it.

This whole thread really no longer bears continuing; the products themselves are illegal, and therefore a no-go from the start. We entertained the notion for a short while, but it appears the HID kit "evangelism" continues, whether outright, or sneakily by referring to the kits as *using* quality parts.

There is no quality in a product that has no fitness of merchantability, such as an HID kit. None at all.

 

[-Virgil-]

The original question was about quality in terms of reliability. Yes, there are plenty of bulb and ballast options on the market which exceed OEM

That is going to be a pretty difficult assertion to support. While it is possible to point at particular OE HID systems as being relatively problematic (such as the 2nd-generation Toyota Prius), in general OE HID bulbs and ballasts are quite durable and reliable. Sure, ballasts sometimes burn out -- just like most other parts of a car, there is a failure rate, but it is quite low. Probably high enough to support a company like yours offering aftermarket replacements, especially for older vehicles with ballasts that have become difficult and/or unreasonably expensive to replace. As for bulbs, their failure rate is quite low, too, and most of them are still lighting up by the the time they ought to be replaced to restore full headlamp performance just because of the normal output degradation with usage that is intrinsic to HID bulbs of all kinds.

There is a variety of legitimate aftermarket HID bulbs from reputable makers that change the performance characteristics of the headlamp (slightly bluer light and/or more light with better beam focus), and there is a giant variety of poor-quality knockoff junk as well. But it's difficult to come up with an HID bulb that is genuinely more reliable/more durable than an OE-type bulb.