Hid kit

theretrofitsource.com

bob should look into making these guy's a vendor on here or at least having them hot linked or something.

 

You'll still bind everyone with 35W units in factory housings.

The only real reliable models are OEM--D2S bulbs from reputable makers (Philips, GE, etc) and OEM ballasts. You can find plenty of OEM used stuff on eBay and salvage yards, etc. I think last I checked about $75 per ballast will get you new Toyota units made by Koito or Denso if you shop around.

Those only work with D2S or D2R (depending on model), not plug-and-play junk bulbs.

Some of the cheap stuff might be fairly reliable, but OEM is the only way to go if you're actually concerned about reliability.

 

that is completely inaccurate. trs sells aftermarket bulbs and ballast that are actually equal to or greater than the stock components.

their bulbs are imo just as good as the phillips even though the phillips d2s bulb is regarded as the standard by which all others are measured the morimoto stuff is absolutely comparable i have run both and some extremely expensive osrams as well and to be honest the morimotos where just as good in every single aspect.

ballast oem vs. aftermarket i would say the only ballast that competes or exceeds the quality of the oem unit's are the trs 3five and 5five units from trs. i have personally taken the latest gen matsushida and morimotos apart and the morimotos are fully potted in silicon while the matsushidas are not in any way.

they may heat up a second quicker but, they are not sealed up to be stand alone units as in most applications they are covered by the respective housing they power in oem applications. i have never experienced any issues or artifacts with either but i had to seal my matsushidas while the morimotos where a drop in set it and forget it kinda thing. they come fully potted in silicon against weather and shock.

not to mention they are in literally thousands of cars. the "other" brands of ballast are complete crap imo. some guy's have no problems and run them for years while others have flickering and all different kinds of shit going on.

trs is completely comparable to oem imo and in some way's considerably better from a durability standpoint.

 

I've seen several complaints with TRS stuff, and most of what I have read in the past says their bulbs are not up to the same par as the GE/Philips/etc. I've seen several complaints on hidplanet, but I haven't perused it in quite some time. To a certain extent, we might not know since TRS bought out hidplanet.

I've read problems with the projectors, ballasts, and bulbs. Maybe they've gotten better? Where does TRS get their parts? Probably the same place all the other ballasts and bulbs come from. I think I read a thread somewhere that someone compared the insides of a Morimoto ballast to a generic unit, and they were basically identical, save the fancy case.

I could see an aftermarket company building a good ballast, they're generic electronic components anyone can by from Tyco. I don't see the TRS bulbs surpassing Philips bulbs, though. Kind of like there aren't any good off-brand halogens.

Not trying to slight against TRS--of the aftermarket world, they are probably top dog in HID (though I'm sure there are some good competitors somewhere). I can't imagine they have a fraction of the engineering and testing hardware the OEMs have to build automotive lighting--which is a lot more complicated than a wall beam shot. Do they even have photometric equipment to test their projectors?

For some reason, I don't think any of the OEM ballasts are potted. They are also usually larger than the "slim digital" units. Maybe that has something to do with it? I dunno.

 

it depends on what projector you decide on for your retrofit. ala mini d2s you will need a d2s ballast and so on. if your talking about buying some ddm kit or something of the like and running it in the mean time untl you save up for your retrofit the answer is no.

also kits from trs don't run 300 dollars for bulbs ballast and wiring harnesses either. your going to pay for what you get with hid systems go cheap and you might luck out and get one that functions properly. but, you will more than likely experience some kind of defect with them at some point along the way much much sooner than you would with the morimoto gear.

save up until you have your ducks in a row then do a proper retrofit it's not cheap to do but if done correctly they rock hard core man. for example my lights are significantly brighter and wider than any oem system being offered currently in the world. the clear lenses and mods performed to the projectors awaken them in a shocking way.

 

trs does not source there parts from the same places as ddm or slim or any other company that i know of i had a lengthly discussion with a professional retrofitter who i made friends with. you either go oem or pick your aftermarket gear carefully.

and every product has some complaints associated with it but, there are so many variables when discussing xenon parts to be retrofitted into headlights not designed for them. also the complaints lodged against them are few and far between man much much less than the others named.

i stated that the phillips d2s bulbs are the standard in the industry now that is not in doubt and i don't argue that. however if you took the pepsi challenge between the trs bulbs and the phillips bulbs i doubt you would know the difference. i have personally farted around with lights for a good while now and after getting to know personally some of the best guy's in the game and shooting the shit with them it's clear to me that at least trs has in fact closed the gap in terms of quality and dependability.

furthermore the oem gear is usually not sealed due to the fact that the ballast are usually mounted inside the headlamp assembly's they where not designed to be used in retrofitting where the ballast is to be mounted outside the housing. it's not a big deal at all and the only difference i was able to discern was the oem ballast did heat up a tad quicker that is all. i actually compared the two myself the gen 2 trs ballast have imo closed that gap as well.

customlightz.com and lightwerkz.com use their own branded ballast and bulbs but, they are to my knowledge the only other comparable in quality to the trs gear i actually know that bjorn uses the same stuff just puts his company's moniker on it.

trs is the "top dog" for a reason in the retrofitting game they don't sell junk.

edit: and when did trs buy out hid planet?

 

I'm not sure... maybe a year or two ago? I read a lot of back-and-forth about it, including on not-hidplanet sites. There was some controversy about it--concern for using it more as an advertising platform than an enthusiast site.

I would find it highly unlikely that TRS gets their product from someone other than who makes the Slimcubby or DDM stuff--at least at the factory level. They can certainly provide tighter specs than their competitors, which many products do, but still come out of the same factory with a superior product.

They likely don't own their own manufacturing facilities, and they likely don't have projectors manufactured by Valeo or Stanley, so where else would they get them? Much manufacturing in China is consolidated to single factories across many different brands and quality lines, so it wouldn't surprise me a bit. I can only speculate, though.

Also, I've learned from automotive lighting engineers (and my own research), lighting is quite complex and human perception is the last thing you can use to determine the true ability of lighting. The human eye is pretty bad at making a determination at what it can see, as I understand it. The only way to really tell the performance and accuracy of a lighting system is getting isoplots of the light output--something that requires some pretty expensive equipment.

Even headlights can only really be aimed "good enough" without computer equipment--which I think is often used by some states to verify the safety gear of a vehicle.

It's just pretty rare for a small company to be able to out-engineer a company with millions backing research, teams of dozens if not hundreds of bonafide engineers, equipment, etc. The OEMs have to balance reliability, capability, and lighting regulation--DOT, ECE, etc.--in their platforms. It's kind of like how AMD is constantly lagging Intel. Intel probably has a bigger office supply budget for pens and pencils than AMD grosses in a year.

Certainly, many aftermarket products improve upon OEM designs, but they generally deviate from the balance--more horsepower, less reliability. Certainly too, engineers can make mistakes.

TRS does a pretty good job at competing in the aftermarket and they are obviously talented, though I've never used their stuff I did plan at one time to go with a projector kit. I decided to err on the side of simplicity and reliability though and keep the stock systems. I could be wrong, maybe TRSMatt is an ex-industry expert with 20+ years designing projectors for Hella. I don't get that impression though, but that would change a lot.

I am adding some auxiliary lighting on the truck with some Hella projectors in the near future, so that should be interesting.