I know there have been plenty of questions regarding HID's but this has yet to be asked and I am wanting to know as I am getting closer to maybe buying some for my truck.

How long have you had your HID's?
How long to the bulbs last?
How well do they work in dense fog and heavy snow?
Where do you find a "true" hi/lo HID set or are the HID low beams and halogen high beams good enough?

 

I am also very interested in installing some HID's before my next road trip..
Anybody seen any good tutorials online as well??

I am a moron when it comes to electrics, I do have a volt meter, and can twist wire but that is about it.. I wouldnt know how to read a wiring diagram if I saw one..

 

I've had my HIDs since February or so. The advertised life of the bulbs is something like 5000 hours, which is twice the life of a halogen bulb. I have used my HIDs in just about every imaginable weather condition and wouldn't go back to halogen.

The kits most places sell as Bi-xenon are actually a telescoping bulb to change the beam pattern. That's what my kit is and I am very impressed with it. The HID lights put out plenty of light so increasing the actual light output when going to high beams isn't necessary like with halogen bulbs.

Pancho - Install is simple. Replace the stock bulb with the HID bulb then everything else is simple plug in. The plugs will only fit one way. One thing specific to Rover if you go with the bi-xenon bulbs is you'll need to do is trim the rubber boot on the back of the light to fit the around the base of the HID bulb.

 

Try our sponsor, http://www.hidextra.com/ or go to 70Dollarhids.com
The second one gives a lifetime warranty on the bulbs and replace in sets of 2 so you always have identical brightness and color.

 

I have a car I have had for seven years that has factory xenon and I have never had to replace a bulb yet.

There is no question that the xenon does not do as well in fog, snow and rain as halogen. This is simply due to the color temp of the bulbs, the higher the kelvin the worse they are. The factory bulbs are 4300K and in fog I just run the corners and fog lights, which are halogen. The reason has something to do with the spectrum of the light. Yellow light waves penetrate the water molecules in the air while white/blue are absorbed / reflected... or something to that effect.

The factory xenons I have are both high and low beam and when I finally get around to upgrading the Disco I'll only do the low. That way I still have the halogen high for flashing as in daylight halogen is much more visible to other drivers and the xenon takes a while to warm up so you'd essentially loose the ability to flash. If you look at the cars w/ factory xenon high and low beams they still have an additional halogen high beam that is only activated for the flash function (pull in on the light stalk).

Hope that helps.

-Jim-

 

Stay away from 70dollarhids.com. They will take your money and you'll never see the parts. I ended up filing a dispute with my bank to get my money back.

 

Yes this helps alot, that is exatly what I was wondering, how the brighter light reflects off the snow/rain.
Sounds like I need to do some more research and maybe even test drive a car that has them in the snow.
Living less than 30 miles from the second largest lake in the US we get lots of fog/rain/snow and I drive alot at night so...more research is needed.

 

http://orca.st.usm.edu/~jmneal/tiburon/hids.htm#3

 

What everyone fails to mention is, HID lights fitted to vehicles that are "manufactured" with them, have a reflector specifically designed to work with the light throw of a HID filament.......the standard halogen headlight reflector is NOT designed to work with a HID setup, hence it is actually illegal in the UK (although not enforced very much yet!!! hope it is soon tho) to fit a HID kit to a Halogen headlamp as the beam pattern is all wrong.

food for thought.........

 

When did Land Rover start putting HID's in Discos?? Or did they, Would updating to a newer year model Lens give a correct light pattern??