WOW ! - HID bulb conversion on my Hyundai Coupe (with lots of pics).
Turbo Mini Forums

Thought I'd share this as the only thing I could find about High Intensity Discharge bulbs (or HID for short) on TM's was not very complimentary .......

I bought my Hyundai Coupe SIII in September last year and am well chuffed with it but since buying it, I always thought the headlights let it down in the visibility department.

The car uses Halogen H7 55w bulbs in the dips and in the main beams. The dips were particularly appalling.

I didn't fancy going the usual route of fitting higher wattage H7's or even some of the so called 'Ultra bright this and that bollocks' as I've never found they really work, so I bit the bullet and bought two sets of 6000k 35w HID conversion kits online from 'In-Car-Stuff.com' to replace all four bulbs.

A very reasonable £49 per pair, including the ballasts and all wiring, plus £9 Interlink p&p. £107 in total to do the car.

Fantastic service - ordered Wednesday, arrived Friday, fitted them today within 3 hours. Will post some pics up later.

An absolute bloody doddle. No chopping of any wiring, complete plug in and play job.

EDIT: For rules & regs on HID lighting, see Tom's comment on self levelling lamps and washers and Rod S's useful link in a few posts below (Thanks Tom and Rod for clarification on legality).

I went out for a blast tonight after fitting.

It's a bloody revelation and has got to be one of the best buys I've made.

When they say that the improvement will look like daylight, they're not kidding ! And they are sooooooooooo cool ! Awesome bit of technology - they should be standard on all cars.

And I didn't get any other drivers complaining of dazzling so the original headlamp aim appears ok - nevertheless, I think I'll get my friendly MOT man to help set the alignment back up just to make sure.

There are lots of HID kits on the market, the prices are really good value for money.

Here's mine :

http://www.in-car-stuff.com/shop/12v35w-60...26027204355d29a

and a pic below of the Falcon kit.

EDIT : And low and behold, here's the Moss Europe kit for the Mini when fitted with H4 Halogen bulbs, except these are £153 ...... !

http://www.moss-europe.co.uk/Shop/ViewProd...teIndexID=15727

Some shots now attached of the difference on my Coupe.

Richard.

Attachments:

87.78kb

Edited by turbominivanman on 15th Mar, 2010.

Minivanless, but reluctantly happy living with the decision. There'll be another one day.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=minimadmotorman#p/u

yep worth every penny, i had a couple sets on my 1st supra

Yes i moved to the darkside

Instagram @jdm_brett

might think about this for the Audi; if nothing else I seem to go through dipped bulbs at an alarming rate at the moment. I thnk I'm changing both every 3 months or so.

the wife has Xenons on her car and it far better

I'm also considering it for my A4. However on the legality front, I'm fairly sure to be 100% legal the car must have auto levelling with a sensor on the suspension, and headlamp washers too. Whether you'd get picked up on this though I do not know.

I am with you on this one Tom !

In fact on Renault's if the washing liquid is not high enough, you can't light up your Xenon (they're only for high beams).
If a car maker these days puts a sensor and lights washer, you're pretty sure it's mandatory ...

Rusty by nature

That is the case for cars that are manufactured with them but if you retro fit them as long as they are aligned you should be ok. I've had xenons on a few cars and the difference is astounding, they have all been standard fit though.

The law it stood last time I looked

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/drs/hidheadlamps

Tom is essentially correct (unless the law has changed since I bookmarked this) in that you must have self levelling and a wash system to fit any of the "E" marked aftermarket kits.

I didn't buy one at the time I was looking (a few years ago) as I only had wash, but no self levelling.

TBH, the most frightening thing for me would be to come across one of these at night without self levelling and the oncoming car with a load in the boot so the HID pointing upwards ....

That is why some legislation is actually sensible.

But the likelyhood of an MOT spotting the illegality is slim, just as the statistical probability of being caught DUI, but both can kill.....

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

the advantage i found with mine, unplug the ballast packs and swap out the bulbs, (in theory) a 10 minute job and the original bulbs are back in for an mot

Yes i moved to the darkside

Instagram @jdm_brett

considering this big time for my santa fe, ditch the x3 extra lights i have on it now…
Will i have problems with icing in the winter?
I have no washers on it and wonder if it´s worth retro fitting if doing the xenon upgrade?

cheers
//marcus

internationally known as "big" swede

fitted HID's to the projector lights on my A3 just before christmas, one of the best things I've ever done, SO SO SO much more light, I wouldn't be without them again.

Mr. Prawn, the friendly Crustacean- slowly making steps towards forced induction.

Tom / Rod.

You're right guys, self levelling and washers is the legal requirement.

My Coup has neither but I do have the advantage that the dips are beam height adjustable by way of a dash adjuster switch if I get issues. That said, even as a straight swap, I had the dip beam heights and beam angles checked out and both are within tolerance of the Hyundai manual at the 3m check distance. If carrying load, I can set the beam heights lower.

I've added some pics of the kit and how I fitted the bulbs and ballasts plus you can see the effects of the new lamps in how they give such a bright white light.

One shot which says it all is the pic showing the HID fitted on the passenger side compared to the Halogen on the drivers side. Darn good.

I also fitted white LED parking bulbs today and they now match the HIDs for brightness.

Brilliant conversion and well worth the money. They even do a combined H4 Dim/Dip single bulb conversion for £69 .........

Tempting for the Minivan but I'd probably only consider doing it if I could get hold of the later adjustable headlamps off an MPi or similar. Food for thought though.

Richard.

Attachments:

179.19kb

242.48kb

146.38kb

172.04kb

Edited by turbominivanman on 14th Mar, 2010.

Minivanless, but reluctantly happy living with the decision. There'll be another one day.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=minimadmotorman#p/u

Some more pics of the work involved.

Attachments:

185.05kb

189.12kb

164.73kb

279.99kb

Minivanless, but reluctantly happy living with the decision. There'll be another one day.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=minimadmotorman#p/u

And the effect at night is stunning ......

Attachments:

255.72kb

125.76kb

128.02kb

114.41kb

Minivanless, but reluctantly happy living with the decision. There'll be another one day.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=minimadmotorman#p/u

I knew someone had to do a HID kit for the Mini eventually and needed to look no further than well known Mini parts supplier Moss, here in the UK.

I've added the link to the Moss Europe Mini HID H4 kit in the original post and reproduced it below.

Not cheap at £153 and you need to have Halogen lamps (Wipac, Hella etc) already fitted otherwise these are extra at about £35 a pair.

http://www.moss-europe.co.uk/Shop/ViewProd...teIndexID=15727

I note they use a very tactful and diplomatic description of what they expect the buyer to investigate before buying and don't mention anything about self levelling lights / suspension and / or lamp washers. In other words, you buy and fit the kit at your own risk.

Probably not bother for the Minivan, the lights are damn good already. Plus a HID kit would stand out like Rudolphs nose on an old car like the Mini but does not look at all out of place on a newer car like the Coup.

Richard.

Minivanless, but reluctantly happy living with the decision. There'll be another one day.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=minimadmotorman#p/u

Just use any HID H4 kit in a mini headlight .. been running them for years. though had to modify them a little to get a perfect beam pattern with the regular wipac lenses.

Edited by evolotion on 15th Mar, 2010.

turbo 16v k-series 11.9@118.9 :)

Denis O'Brien.