Replacing stock halogens with HID's?

[The CEO]

My '06 Limited has everything except my favorite option... HID XENON HEADLAMPS! I have seen replacement kits for cars hat come with halogens and I am curious as o the problems that might crop up if I replaced the halogen bulbs with a xenon kit. Does anyone know or have done this??

[cwescapexlt4x4]

I could be interested in this as well ...

[celly]

There are many options available. Hit the search function and you'll see. Keep in mind that aftermarket HID kits are illegal in many locales ("for off road use only") and you won't pass inspections in many areas. Nonetheless, a LOT of people have done it before and they talk about it in past discussions. Pretty easy mod for the most part and lots of different options at your disposal.

[cwescapexlt4x4]

no inspections in Washington and these new bulbs (h11 i think, or is it the h12?? i dunno..) has hardly ANY aftermarket options...

[06EddieNav]

Ford of Japan sells the HID kit for the 2006 Explorer. They also have many other accessories they dont sell in the states. I found the link somewhere on this forum.

[cwescapexlt4x4]

I could not find on the japanese site the HID's and the bulbs are H13's on the 2006's

[The CEO]

I found the Japanese lights on the ford website but cannot read japanese or find an importer to get one for me. Does anyone know of a japanese parts importer?

[The CEO]

btw the Janpanese lights are for the 2002-2005 Explorers and cost $1,100

[cwescapexlt4x4]

Originally Posted by The CEO

btw the Janpanese lights are for the 2002-2005 Explorers and cost $1,100

And could be set up for Right hand drive too, so the light pattern/cut off could be reverse of what we need and be blinding to on-coming traffic.

[Crizz]

Orderer a HID conversion kit for my 2006 Eddie at the shop where I bought the kit for my 99´s H4. Will arrive Monday, will post some pics when work´s done.

btw : as far as i remember it´s H13. I pay r.a. 230 bucks for it.

[msmith65]

Originally Posted by The CEO

I am curious as o the problems that might crop up if I replaced the halogen bulbs with a xenon kit.

One potential problem as I see it -- having spent a lot of hard-earned money on accessories that yielded no usable improvement in performance, economy, or resale value -- is that you may someday wish you had that money back.

That's assuming you don't do a lot of night driving on rural highways, where such things as grill-mounted searchlights would serve a purpose.

[The CEO]

Crizz, the h13 kits I have seen are only low beams. I havent seen a bi-xenon kits for h13's at all, let me know if you have seen one.

[Crizz]

I´ve ordered the single-xenon-kit ( only lo-beam ) because I like it more than Bi-Xenon. The reason : on these conversion kits, the highbeam is only made by a moveable fader / shutter. There is no different current on the lamp, and what I have seen on H4-conversion kits with this systems, the Highbeam of the normal halogen bulbs isn´t a real big difference from the xenon-highbeams. But takes over 100 bucks more, in my opinion too much for too less ( and sparebulbs are even double the price than single-xenons : r.a. 90 bucks / each against 50 / each ).

But, i´ll try to figure out if H13 is available in bi-xenon too.

[The CEO]

Bi-Xenon kits on BMW, Audi, and Mercedes also use the "shutter" system. So how would replacement kits that use the same system be of less quality?

[Crizz]

I wasn´t talking about quality - you need to remember that a factory xenon.-system has esp. designed headlights and are not only converted by using other "bulbs". A headlight constructed for halogen bulbs will be different with xenon-burners, but not the same like a sepcial designed unit. Thats the little difference, and I only told about my experiences with converted halogen-headlights.

( I don´t compare apples with pears )

[The CEO]

I fully know that halogen units and xenon units are designed diffrently. I used to have an Audi with factory xenons and would post on audiworld.com. There were also discussions on converting and the diffrence between factory xenon and conversion xenon.

Your comment about the hi-lo not having much diffrence just struck me as odd simply because high class cars like the Acura TL and such use a shuttered bi-xenon system. I'd like to preserve the hi-lo on my Limited thats why I have held out and am waiting for a bi-xenon h13.

[cwescapexlt4x4]

I had a 2006 Cadillac DTS rental this week and it also had the shuttered use of the xenon. Interesting and first time i had use of that system and seemed to work well.
only bad thing is that no flash to pass feature anymore since the lamp has to be on to engage the highs...

[The CEO]

There are drawbacks to the system but Xenons beat Halogens any day of the week. Plus it looks hot and would fit in well with all the chrome on my Limited

[The CEO]

Crizz, since you live in Germany could you look around and see if Hella or Bosch or any of the other big name lighting companies produce a h13 bi-xenon kit? Thanks!

[Crizz]

CEO, I checked Bosch and Hella for Xenons. Result : Bosch only manufatures normal Halogenlights, Hella uses D2S-System for projecting lights and D2R for reflecting ( like the Explorer has ). No H13 used over her : ((

But asked my dealer for H13 Bi-Xenon conversions, just waiting for reply. Will let you know asap.