Ford Explorer HID Conversion Kits (problem?)

[VandyCWG]

Im about the pull the trigger.....but

The high beams stuff, the 9005 kit keeps that?

And the "auto" switch, do it still work?

 

[Harley#356]

yes, high beams are a function of our projector housings by a flap moving, not by method of the bulb changing brightness or anything. So regular single stage 9005 HIDs will still keep high beams.

As for auto lamp, some guys have had issues with only 1 light firing up with autolamp. This is due to the HIDs having extremely high draw on startup, and with the starter draw pulling the system down concurrently with the ballasts trying to fire up, sometimes 1 side won't light. Two things exacerbate this. Cheaper HID kits with lower quality electronics, and running the ballasts off the stock wiring. Higher quality kits, and using a relay harness so the ballasts are pulling juice directly off the battery and not the tiny gauge stock wiring, are two things that should lessen the chances for this to happen.

I never use autolamps so I can't say if we've had any issue on our morimoto kit from TRS with the relay harness. One fix though is time delay relays, which on the bright side with a harness kit, all you're doing is swapping relays if you do have an issue, and not rewiring, etc.

 

[roamingphantom]

So in essence to avoid the auto issue I would just get 6000k d3s bulbs for my limited and I should be just fine? I am trying to steer away from doing a kit

 

[rpr]

Most of you have much newer Explorers than mine

I have a 2006 Limited. Any idea if the HIDs will work OK on my X with the the stock non-projector housings, or will it throw light everywhere?

If I can get away with my stock '06 housings, I am thinking about HID headlamps as well as HID fogs, but I am thinking the fogs will almost definitely throw too much light everywhere?

Thoughts?

 

[Harley#356]

woohoo getting radio interference on FM with the TRS kit.......damnit!

 

[Bizness]

Installed mine yesterday and after 20 minutes I lose one and then eventually the other. I did the fogs as well but there doesn't seem to be an issue with them.
The ballasts are hot but on my other cars they got hot as well.
I'm assuming its an overheating issue as when I try it a few hours later they work fine again.
Any suggestions??
Thanks

 

[anomadtoo]

Has anyone tried the Philips Crystal Vision Ultra bulbs? says its supposed to be similar to HID's.

 

[roamingphantom]

Has anyone tried the Philips Crystal Vision Ultra bulbs? says its supposed to be similar to HID's.

I have it on my fogs and like it. They are good but not close to HID's - actually I am going with hids later today.

If you search you will find a thread with some pics of what they look like on the fogs.

 

[R1chard]

Has anyone tried the Philips Crystal Vision Ultra bulbs? says its supposed to be similar to HID's.

I have them on my fogs, they are similiar to HIDs but too blue like color up close. Looking at the car far away, they seem whiter. I use them mainly for DRLs with my parking lights. I will post night time photos at some point.

Contemplating changing to HIDs (4300K) for the fogs sometime down the road.

 

[roamingphantom]

Here are a couple of examples

The first pic - Philips Diamond Vision on the driver side and one of the Ebay Cree's on the passenger side.

The second pic is with 5000k HID's (Opt7 from ebay)

 

[Nightcrew]

Thats a good look; I bet no one loiters in the passing lane in front of you...

 

[anomadtoo]

Thanks for posting pics. The Philips Crystal Vision bulbs do look nice a bright; better than stock; and in your pic they look brighter than the Cree's HID. They don't seem to be that bad at all.

 

[Motoarzan]

Has anyone tried the Philips Crystal Vision Ultra bulbs? says its supposed to be similar to HID's.

Unfortunately, for us Canadians these bulbs and all the others like those Sylvania Silverstar Ultras, GE nighthawks ect..ect.. are not practical in Canada.
These lights are usually brighter and whiter because they make them with a thinner filament = more current = brighter. The problem is the longevity is greatly reduce by a "huge" amount.
Now, in Canada, with us having daytime running lights liked to our headlights it's a double whammy and reduces bulb life even further.
If you read any Canadian retailer product reviews on these types of bulbs most people don't even get a full year out of them.

I just installed Sylvania Silverstar Ultra's on my wife's 2005 Honda Pilot and they are awesome. To get over the longevity issue I disabled here DRL lights by simply pulling the "DRL" fuse. To make up for not having DRL lights on the headlamps I installed those Philips 4 LED DRL Strip lights. They look great and are even brighter and I purchased a second set to go on my Explorer Sport coming in 2 wks.