Are hid,s blinding people or.....

^ Saw the thread about this one. You must live in a safe area. If at a stop light the driver in front get out and approaches my truck, I'd think about a carjacking attempt. Draw your handgun, point at the roof and very visibly rack the slide, to let them know you mean business.

 

I have a 35W 5000k kit with the shields and have them aimed the best they can be. Every once in a while someone will flash me.

I bought them so I could see the road better and I really don't care if anyone else is bothered by them - I know this is an asshole attitude, but that's just the way it is. As was mentioned earlier, I have to listen to the 'tards on their Harleys and drive around in the fog with idiots that don't turn on their lights...so they get to deal with a little glare from my truck.

 

^^ This... or do it right and either retrofit your stock housings with projectors or use properly aimed auxilary lighting. My stock headlights don't do much but I've got more potent driving lights tied into my high beams that light up the road when there's no oncoming traffic.

 

i cant see shiet at night.. but thanks to my spaceship front end i'm fine! i dont care about other drivers!!!
















jk

 

I have HIDs with projectors, have never had a problem or pissed anyone off.. if you do hids, retro, or get projectors.

 

FWIW, sound law is sound law. Its just typically enforced more on stereos than exhausts. But I know people who have been ticketed for their exhaust being too loud. Personally obnoxiously loud subs are more annoying to me than an exhaust. I have no problem with having a good sounding stereo IN the vehicle but I don't need something that's gonna shake a car 4 cars away in traffic or make someones house shake.

As far as the HID's im a bit of a hypocrite as I had a kit in halogen housings when I had my 07 Impala SS. Id never do it again especially not in a truck. If I ever have HID's again that aren't from the factory they will be a proper retrofit with actual HID projectors. The argument that you someone should deal with it cause its a safety issue is ridiculous. If someone wants the
the for safety reasons do it right. Although on a backroad high HID lows aren't gonna do much more than a halogen high beam would. Personally I've never found myself blinded by factory HID's but am usually annoyed by them in trucks with halogen housings.

 

Exactly which is why a QUALITY complete kit doesn't cost just a few hundred bucks. Sure there are some DIY'rs that can do a quality job but lets face it...90% of the people buy an e-bay kit and slap it in without even trying to adjust the beam.

I spent $2500 on HID and custom housings on my other car, and an ass ton of time adjusting and retrofitting the entire assembly to work correctly. True quality isn't found for $200 on e-bay.

And those 3 seconds of blinding a person is more than enough to cause a head-on collision or have them run off the road.

That's why you don't 'overdrive' your vision range. You don't blind other people just to compensate to drive faster. We all drive faster than we should at night, I admit it too, but blinding other people isn't the solution.

A quality HID should warm in less than 5 seconds from a cold start and less than 1 second after that if they've been used recently.

Most people want the BMW look, and the only way to get that with a cheap kit is to color the light blue, unlike the prism effect that the BMW and similar cars produce.

All European lights and bulbs are ECE spec and NOT legal in the USA. In fact it can be hard to even import them since its a hefty fine, if enforced, if the lights end up used on US roads.

Honestly though the DOT and ECE specs are quite similar, but if it doesn't have DOT on the product then it is not legal.

This is not to say you can't buy USDM products direct from a German manufacturer (like Hella), but it's usually more money than going through a warehouse locally, especially with the falling dollar prices.

True 10k light would be very far into purple and produce a near useless light pattern and strength.


The MULTIQUOTE didn't pick up the comment about there should be laws against HIDs....there are, in almost every state. It varies but it's all basically the same, HID's in a non HID housing/reflector or such equipped vehicle is illegal; period.

Is it enforced? Rarely.

 

I'll take some over here...

 

can i point something out before this thread goes total shit show. the for ground lighting on the halogen setup pictured in much more pronounced than in the hid set up. there is massive amounts of light escaping lol that is a fact.

the halogen setup while not as bright most certainly puts light where it is needed most out to the sides and out front.

post up some pictures of it on the wall at about 20 feet so we can see how much light is actually escaping i'd bet my ass it's more than you think.

sure your going to see better with a bulb thats twice as bright that basically looks like it has some type of half ass for ground limiter on it because it's throwing all that light out in front of the truck at eye level thats the whole argument here is it not? if i aimed my projectors half as high as those i could see hundreds of yards down the road lol that is not what your main light source is for though so yes they may help you "see better" but, your unsafe to other motorist.

if you want a beam that goes farther down the road and is brighter from your main driving lamps you need to retrofit and aim them properly.

 

lots of different opinions in here!

 

Damn...my hids only fill up the top half of my reflector bowl becuz of my shields on the actual bulbs...

 

for guy's like you i do what whippersnapper said i slow down which is not hard to do in my regular cab lol and i let you guy's pass. if your lights are really obnoxious i hit everything i have then they know what it's like to be me being blinded

between the 55 watt customized fx-rs 4 vision-x solstice leds 2 flood beams and 2 euro beams and 2 large hellas behind the grill with vision-x high power halogen bulbs you will feel heat on the back of your neck and you won't be able to see correctly for like 5 minutes.

so my question is this. if you know your being flashed by other drivers it's obvious that your causing them to go partially blind for a second or two after you actually pass them and you answer to this is fuck it it's the way it is

 

This post did not help your argument.

 

So much scatter in the HID picture you can not see the truck.

Yup.

Most people won't do that and argue they're set-up is better/different in some why to justify it.

"People aren't flashing me, therefore I am not blinding anyone"

Maybe they are too busy reaching for the water bottle because their corneas just burst into flames?

Point is....

Don't cheap out.
KNOW, don't think you know, KNOW what you are doing.
Follow local laws and common sense.
Properly adjust your beam or have a shop do it for you.
Stay away from anything other than ~4300K color, 5K max if you MUST have a slight blue tinge.

and... brighter does not always equal better.

 

several cops here run 55w HIDs in reflector housings

 

AND 2 of my police friends have custom cars with limo tint (5%) all the way around...doesn't make it legal; they just have a better 'Get out of jail FREE card'.

 

hids don't project correctly in HALOGEN housings. The arc is in a different position and orientation than the halogen filament. Think about how a mag light works.
That is all

 

rep for saying it perfectly

if you do not have the money to do a proper retrofit just stick with halogens. there are some pretty decent bulbs out there that will put down some nice light for a relatively big difference from the factory bulbs.

lol this thread makes me want to do this