desidon

Hi All,
This has been beaten to death already. I read a lot of previous posts as well before posting but am still confused. Below is what I want.

I have a 2002 C4s with halogens. All I am looking for is a HID/Xenon/litronic low beam. The high beam can be Halogen. I do not care about the washers and the self leveling feature.

Can it be done short of putting $5000 worth of new headlight assemblies? If yes....what are the part numbers.

Thx....DD

ArneeA

Do you want to stay OEM or aftermarket?

If you don't mind going aftermarket, there are kits out there that include an HID ballast and HID bulb that connect to your existing harness, essentially converting the system from a halogen to HID.

Prices range from $300 to $500 or so.

desidon

OEM would be nice but I dont think that is cheap.($5k+)

Are you positive that conversion kits are available for 2002 + 996's? My reading tells me that kits are available for 99- 01, not for 02+ 996's. Is that accurate?

DD

ArneeA

I speak of aftermarket generic/universal headlight conversions to Xenons/HIDs

Porsche_Smile

aftermarket ones will work.... it will cost you around $400 total... all you need are hid's and the ballast

Porsche_Smile

btw... great looking ride

tooloud10

The aftermarket HIDs are an absolute joke. As the old adage goes, you get what you pay for...

That said, the self-leveling system that nobody ever cares about is essentially part of the HID spec and officially, you're not supposed to run them without it being in place.

phaphaphooey

No affliation, but I have had great luck with todd at retro-solutions.com. He has a new digital kit that is getting rave reviews on various car boards and has a lifetime warranty. I believe it is 150 shipped right now within the continental U.S. In all my dealings with him he has been both fair and honest, I recommend him. If you do go over there, tell him I sent you.

Wherever you purchase the kit, I would strongly recommend running the stock 4300K color temp.

Benjamin Choi

I'm wondering how the bulb would actually fit into the existing halogen casing on the projector headlight setup. it couldn't b e plug and play since it's swapping out halogen bulbs for the hid bulbs. Sure you can get the ballast and bulb anywhere (stick with OEM suppliers), but how would the cut off work out? Since the halogen unit already has a cutoff, maybe it's ok?

i also don't care for the auto leveling and headlight washers and it's absolutely not true that you need auto leveling like it's "supposed" to be (what a bunch of crap).

ArneeA

That's inaccurate. There are plenty of cars on the road with factory HIDs without auto-leveling. Auto-leveling is not required to "run" HIDs but is instead an extra feature for the European cars.

Benjamin Choi

i'll go one further, extra feature for some euro cars, some asia cars

tooloud10

...which is because a lot (all?) of the cars in question include a manual-leveling system activated by a switch on the dash, like my Infiniti has.

It's not a "feature" for the European cars--it's required there, and almost everywhere, which is why I said that it's pretty much part of the HID spec.

ArneeA

S2000 has HID but no auto-leveling.
W210 chassis E-class has HID optional but no auto-leveling feature.
W163 chassis ML-class has HID optional but no auto-leveling feature.

Where in the DOT documents say that auto-leveling is required for cars with HID? These three quick and easy examples show that auto-leveling is NOT required.

Benjamin Choi

bam

tooloud10

I never claimed that the DOT required it. I claimed that as almost every other nation requires a leveling feature (be it automatic or manual) it seems like a mistake to just leave it out, unless, you know, you're looking to do it Mickey Mouse-style.

HID headlamps get a bad enough name already for being "too bright". That's probably because half of them in this country are $150 eBay kits or aimed improperly.