Kessil

Aftermarket HIDs

A_Lee

A_Lee

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Hey all,
My brother is thinking about getting aftermarket Xenon HID's installed on his Civic. I always thought this was illegal, which is the reason I never got them for my car. I must admit ... the HID's light the road WAY better than stock halogen bulbs. Well, the brother says they're fine because he is going to adjust his headlights lower so they don't blind all oncoming traffic. So now I am confused. Illegal, or no?
Anyone here have aftermarket HID's installed?
 
I believe all aftermarkets are illegal, regardless of what you do to it.

Now I think you can have a professional do it as a retrofit option, but as a person, not supposed to do it yourself.
 
I'm pretty sure unless your car came with them, you can't retrofit one without them legally...professionally installed or not. The car clubs are ripe with posts about this subject.
 
if you change your headlights or tail lights to aftermarket ones, they are illegal.... my gf was ticketed for being modified on her mustang.. most cops look the other way unless they are a you know what :bigsmile:
 
I feel you there Knuckle! :D
I convinced my brother to stray away from HID's, and FWIW, he has a Honda Civic with reflector head lamps so he would not be able to control cut-off; so now he is wondering what the brightest street legal halogen lamps he can get are? Not just for looks, but also for increased visibility during the night.
Does anyone have any recommendations?
 
I've got a set installed on my '01 teg. Stock headlight assembly with HID retrofit. The kit (Philips) pops in and out pretty easily and I still have the stock bulbs so if anything, I'd just put those back in. IIRC they're 4000K bulbs that I've been running since '02 or so.
 
Did you ever get any hassle from law enforcement Eric? I think my brother is choosing to avoid the possibility of being pulled over, which would explain his picking up the PIAA bulbs, haha :)
 
Never had any issue w/law enforcement for the lights or anything else (knock on wood). My bro picked up a similar set for his Suby at the time with 5000K bulbs, but he pulled his out since he didn't want to fudge around with his Euro bug eyes headlights. I've got a good driving record; no speeding ticket or any citations of any sort on my record.

I'm sure they're not as bright as they used to be but still way better than the crappy stock lights.
 
Both my brother and I have clean slates as well. Yeah, I have an integra also, and the stock halogen bulbs are not satisfactory for me. When I first got the car, one of the first things I did was switch out the stock bulbs for some brighter ones, though still not nearly as bright as HID lamps. Plus the ones I put in were more white, which I find more pleasing to look at then the fugly yellow halogens.
 
Modifying your lights in anyway is illegal. Putting in a plug and play HID lamp + ignitor etc. into a stock reflector is REALLY bad. The reflectors are not made for HID lamps, and will splash light all over the place. Might be brighter, but you'll get caught.

Best to get a pro retrofit done (~$2000 for a good one) that utilizes something like S2000 projectors, shrouds, ballast, ignitor, etc.

I know a guy who can do bixenon retros as well =) He did one for a friend of mine, 4 HID projectors, two in each housing. How? two for low beams, two bixenon that move upwards when you want highs. Way overkill, but he can grow coral I bet with that thing. Still Illegal.

If you have something like an accord (like me), the japanese equivalent (honda inspire) uses HID's and has a HID housing. No projector, just reflective HID. Those are basically plug and play (a little wiring, but nothing a reefer can't handle).

So look into those as well.

IMO not worth it in any case unless you want and are willing to spend big bucks with the risk of getting caught with a fixit.
 
Ibn said:
'01 'tegs actually come with projectors. The cutoff just doesn't look as nice as say something from an S2K.
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Those projectors are for projecting non-hid lamps, thus you'll get funky glare all over. Same goes for those ebay projector housings.

The HID projectors are what you want. Finding a few s2000 ones in the junkyard are easy. Also easily put in are projectors from the tsx, audi's, bmw's, and such.
 
So any light modifications are illegal in CA? huh....

Makes sense now, back home in MA I can't tell you how many purple twinkle'y lights I saw installed and since I've moved out here I haven't seen any.
 
A_Lee said:
Hm, so even all the smoked tail lights I see on people's cars are also technically illegal?
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure this is just for headlights. Turn signals must be amber in the front, and taillights must be red, though only when they light up.

There are some laws that you cannot cover your lights with any sort of film.
 
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