Cary; Why are you trying to start something? There is a history to the conversation beyond this thread and Mxn gracefully reminded us there are folks that feel the simple HID install is an improvement. You and I agree on the point that it's not.
When someone makes spurious claims of improvements that have been demonstrated to not work, there are two possibilities, they have done something different that results in the improvement, or their subjective opinion is not the same as others. Here, we have seen time and time again that HID rebases simply don't work. They change the focal point and focal length of the source light resulting in a poor lighting pattern, light scatter and more uplight in other drivers eyes. This is both dangerous and illegal. Just because other drivers have given up flashing their high beams at people running piss poor HID retrofits, doesn't mean that the retrofits work better.
Rob,
We are on the same page...sort of. We (and others) will disagree that hid's without a full retrofit is bad. I wont disagree that a full retrofit is a better solution. But, all that has been covered in other threads.
I have just never understood the hoopla over HIR. I know lots of people rave over them. I just didn't see enough improvement to warrant the cost. I felt it only gave at most a 5% increase over what was already unsatisfactory from Mr. T. The way everyone always talks, I expected more and was just underwhelmed.
That is why I went with the hid. I also went to them before anyone was doing retrofits. Actually I think one person had. I will eventually go to a retrofit. I just cant get the retrofit I want yet.
You are missing a couple of key issues. Just because there is more light, doesn't mean it is better. For example, many people run fog lights which increase foreground illumination and feel that it gives them more driving light. It actually decreases it as the pupils dialate in order to compensate for the extra light resulting decreased peripheral vision and decreased vision outsite of the lit area. While these people feel like there is a lot of light on the road, they are in fact creating a situation where they overdrive their lights sooner rather than later.
In the case of the stock lamps, the amount of light that can be thrown out far is limited by the multipoint reflector design. While it works better than the old lens and parabolic reflector system (both efficiency and the ability to distribute light) it is still limited that the cutoff cannot be perfectly sharp and light falls off as you approach the cutoff. This is with a bulb that is properly placed. When you go to an HID retrofit in the stock housing, this limitation is exacerbated, as the focal point and length of the HID bulb is different resulting in diffusion and the scattering of light. Now the reflector housing is scattering light further up and around as well as closer to the car. This appears brighter, but in fact is putting less light where you need it, as far out in front and to the sides of the vehicle as possible.
As far as why the HIR bulbs don't seem much brighter, it is because our eyes, like our ears, process light in a logarithmic fashion. Objectively the numbers are as follows:
Standard 9006 bulb- 1000 lumens
Philips 9012- 1900-2000 lumens (the gen3 are supposed to be 10% brighter than the original 1875 lumen spec)
Philips 9011- 2500 lumens
35 watt HID- 3200 lumens
50 watt HID-4200 lumens (danger, likely will trash the reflectors).
The HIR bulbs put out nearly double the output of the stock bulbs, in the correct location. If you want more, you can get 2500 lumens by using 9011 HIR in the low beam slots while maintaining the proper light distribution pattern. It is cheaper than an HID rebase kit, puts more light where it should be and has a higher color rendering index.
Now projector retrofits, as you agree, are a different matter. A projector lamp fixes the issue with multipoint reflectors, they allow you to have the brightest part of the lamp at the cutoff, thereby putting the most light the furthest out where you want it. At the same time, good projectors put less light in the foreground where you don't want it.
I have issues with rebased HID kits because they are dangerous to other drivers. As people age, their eyes can't recover from being blinded as fast (I am in this group). Remember, that just because you don't get flashed, doesn't mean you aren't blinding people the other way. In my case, I typically don't flash people because I don't want to blind the people in front or behind them.
