How to install AAC HID Bi-Xenon headlight on a non-RS Camaro – No Halos

[jnd14401]

im glad to see im im not the only person that likes the 6k thanks for the write up it looks great you helped me with my choicew as well.

[caverman]

So my 5202 bulbs for the fog lights came in today and I went ahead and installed them. All I can say is….WOW…..what a PITA!!! They were 20x harder to install than the Bi-Xenon kit. I tried doing them in the garage under a jack stand but ended up going to a shop with a lift to be able to get to them a little easier. Still they were not easy at all. I know it has to do with the fact that I’ve never done them before and I could definitely do them easier the next time but be prepared if you’ve never dealt with the Camaro fog lights. The design that GM used for the fog lights is not a simple turn and pull out like the head lights are. There are two clips on the side of the bulb housing that have to be pushed in order to pull them out. That by itself is not the really hard part. The hard part comes from not really having much room to get to them.

After trying to install the first 5202 bulb for a good 20 min and then breaking off the push in tabs for the clips I ended up talking to Justin at AAC. He did suggest pulling out the actual fog light housing to make it easier to plug in everything. I definitely agree to that….however, the first time you look at trying to take out the fog lights you’ll see it’s not the easiest thing either. There are about 5 clips that hold in the black trim ring….3 of them are easy but the one on top and the one closest to the fender is not as easy because you basically can’t see them. You pretty much have to pull up the clips by just feeling them.

By the time I was at the point where I had already pulled the factory fog lights out and figured I was close enough to just finish the job without taking out the housing….WRONG! I ended up breaking off the push-in tabs on bulb and one of the clips. This happened on both bulbs because there isn’t much give on the tabs or the clips. If you give them much of a push at all be prepared for them to break off….which of course means they are definitely yours by then. No returning and no one is going to want to buy them. Luckily it only needs one clip to hold them in. After it was all said and done I still had to pull out the fog light housing on one side in order to get it in properly. If I would’ve known that from the beginning it probably would’ve made the install much more tolerable.

So…after the hour and a half of working and a bunch of frustration I finally got them in. Turned them on to see what they look like. Hmmmm…..they are defiantly better than the factory halogen lights but they don’t really match all that well either. They are a bright white…..no hint of blue at all. Even with the 6000k bulbs you can see a fairly distinctive difference between the two. I then took a drive and turned them on/off….you really can’t see a difference with them on. With the factory Halogens you could definitely see a difference on the road when you turned on the fog lights. The Xenons on the other hand put off so much light that you really can’t see the difference in the road when you turn on the fog lights.

If I had it to do all over again I would probably not do the 5202 bulbs. The other option is to go with the HID fog lights that have ballasts and cost probably double the money. If I just had to do the fog lights again I would probably lean that direction but looking back I would have just left the factory ones alone since I probably won’t be turning them on much.

Here is a pic but the difference in the light color is not as noticeable as it is in person. You can see from the light hitting the ground that the 5202 bulbs don't have any blue in them.

[Coop]

I am about to do this myself. Any issues with the DRLs?

[caverman]

Originally Posted by Coop

I am about to do this myself. Any issues with the DRLs?

Nope....no issues with the DRL at all.

I did just have a ballast fail on me after only 3 weeks. Sucks....I'm back on Halogens for the next week or so. Once you have the HID you won't want to go back to Halogen if you don't have to.

For warranty work you have to mail back the part (your expense), they test it, then if it's bad they'll send you back a new one. Not real crazy about that procedure. In my opinion, especially since it's been less than a month, they should send me a ballast no questions asked and then I send them the bad one back. After all....it's now like I had them for a year or so. It's not necessarily good customer service in my book.

Just make sure you pick the right color of lights the first go around or you'll be out a bit of money like I was. Once you open the box thier yours.

If you're not going to do halos then you might check out BFXenon before making your decision on who to buy from. I think they are giving a 15% discount for forum members which would put their kit at around $220. They don't do halos though. http://www.bfxenon.com/Camaro_High_L...d-camarohl.htm

We'll see how my issue gets resolved but so far I'm a little frustrated with my whole experience with AAC. I was going to buy their Afterburner tail lights but not sure I want to go down that road now. Think I'll leave well enough alone and hope I won't be dropping another $200 to get a HID kit from somewhere else.

[Coop]

I did get mine through bfxenon and got a great deal.

[caverman]

Ahhh.....a new ballast came in this afternoon and I have HID back again. Love the HID over Halogen!

AAC sent me a new ballast (which was bad) the next day after receiving it and it came in about 2 days later. It would've been nice to have received and email or a phone call letting me know that they were sending me a new one because the other one was defective but at least they sent me one without any issues. I still don't agree with the fact that I had to pay shipping to send my original one back to them when it was their product that failed in about 3 weeks. The better customer service would've been them sending me one out immediately with return postage so I didn't have to pay money out of my pocket. Oh well.....I got it now so I'm good at the moment. Hopefully it doesn't happen again.


But did I mention I love the HID headlights.

[SDCamaro10]

Originally Posted by christianmotox

Is it me, or is the last pic not as bright as the Halogens?

Looks to me like the halogens were on, with the fog lights, and the second pic was without the fog lights?

[SNV]

Originally Posted by caverman

So my 5202 bulbs for the fog lights came in today and I went ahead and installed them. All I can say is….WOW…..what a PITA!!! They were 20x harder to install than the Bi-Xenon kit. I tried doing them in the garage under a jack stand but ended up going to a shop with a lift to be able to get to them a little easier. Still they were not easy at all. I know it has to do with the fact that I’ve never done them before and I could definitely do them easier the next time but be prepared if you’ve never dealt with the Camaro fog lights. The design that GM used for the fog lights is not a simple turn and pull out like the head lights are. There are two clips on the side of the bulb housing that have to be pushed in order to pull them out. That by itself is not the really hard part. The hard part comes from not really having much room to get to them.

After trying to install the first 5202 bulb for a good 20 min and then breaking off the push in tabs for the clips I ended up talking to Justin at AAC. He did suggest pulling out the actual fog light housing to make it easier to plug in everything. I definitely agree to that….however, the first time you look at trying to take out the fog lights you’ll see it’s not the easiest thing either. There are about 5 clips that hold in the black trim ring….3 of them are easy but the one on top and the one closest to the fender is not as easy because you basically can’t see them. You pretty much have to pull up the clips by just feeling them.

By the time I was at the point where I had already pulled the factory fog lights out and figured I was close enough to just finish the job without taking out the housing….WRONG! I ended up breaking off the push-in tabs on bulb and one of the clips. This happened on both bulbs because there isn’t much give on the tabs or the clips. If you give them much of a push at all be prepared for them to break off….which of course means they are definitely yours by then. No returning and no one is going to want to buy them. Luckily it only needs one clip to hold them in. After it was all said and done I still had to pull out the fog light housing on one side in order to get it in properly. If I would’ve known that from the beginning it probably would’ve made the install much more tolerable.

So…after the hour and a half of working and a bunch of frustration I finally got them in. Turned them on to see what they look like. Hmmmm…..they are defiantly better than the factory halogen lights but they don’t really match all that well either. They are a bright white…..no hint of blue at all. Even with the 6000k bulbs you can see a fairly distinctive difference between the two. I then took a drive and turned them on/off….you really can’t see a difference with them on. With the factory Halogens you could definitely see a difference on the road when you turned on the fog lights. The Xenons on the other hand put off so much light that you really can’t see the difference in the road when you turn on the fog lights.

If I had it to do all over again I would probably not do the 5202 bulbs. The other option is to go with the HID fog lights that have ballasts and cost probably double the money. If I just had to do the fog lights again I would probably lean that direction but looking back I would have just left the factory ones alone since I probably won’t be turning them on much.

Here is a pic but the difference in the light color is not as noticeable as it is in person. You can see from the light hitting the ground that the 5202 bulbs don't have any blue in them.

Even the tabs on 5202 hids are rough lol. The install wasn't that bad. I did it up on a lift. As far as the price they are not that bad. You do have to use 25watt ballasts though. I got my set from here http://www.spencershids.com/shoppingcart/page2.html#14
Your talking about around $50 more for hids over leds. To me is was well worth spending the extra $50 or so.

[caverman]

Originally Posted by SNV

Even the tabs on 5202 hids are rough lol. The install wasn't that bad. I did it up on a lift. As far as the price they are not that bad. You do have to use 25watt ballasts though. I got my set from here http://www.spencershids.com/shoppingcart/page2.html#14
Your talking about around $50 more for hids over leds. To me is was well worth spending the extra $50 or so.

The ones I got from AAC were just a bulb. I guess they are LED. There were no ballasts to deal with. Just unplug factory bulb and plug in theres. They only cost $80 though.

It would've been an easier install if I would've taken out the fog light housing. Thing is that I was told more than once to just unplug them from behind and then plug them in. Yes...in theory that works but it's a little more difficult to align them up doing it that way. Once I broke the tabs on the first bulb I called and then was told "oh...we typically just pull out the whole fog light assembley to make it easier and we are usually doing halo rings". Again, that would've been better had I know that going into it.

[SNV]

Yeah that sucks. I almost went with the same bulbs. When I added to the cart and seen the cost with shipping it pushed me to going with hids. GM really could have done something better with them bulbs. That tab thing just isn't very good :(.

[caverman]

Originally Posted by SNV

Yeah that sucks. I almost went with the same bulbs. When I added to the cart and seen the cost with shipping it pushed me to going with hids. GM really could have done something better with them bulbs. That tab thing just isn't very good :(.

So you put the ones from Spencers on? I'm assuming it had the ballasts? How hard where they to put in? How to do they work...you unplug the factory bulb and plug in line to a ballast and then from the ballast to the new Fog Light? I'm assuming you would've removed the fog light housing to install them.

Another concern I have is that i heard the HID Fog lights could melt the Fog light housing. Doesn't necessarily sound correct because it's supposed to run much cooler but that's what I heard.

[SNV]

Originally Posted by caverman

So you put the ones from Spencers on? I'm assuming it had the ballasts? How hard where they to put in? How to do they work...you unplug the factory bulb and plug in line to a ballast and then from the ballast to the new Fog Light? I'm assuming you would've removed the fog light housing to install them.

Another concern I have is that i heard the HID Fog lights could melt the Fog light housing. Doesn't necessarily sound correct because it's supposed to run much cooler but that's what I heard.

Yes I am using the kit from Spencers. Yes they have ballasts. Factory plug goes into one side of ballast, bulb plugs into other side. No I did not remove the housing. Yeah it might have been better to remove to see better lol. For the Camaro you need to use the 25watt kit. There were two problems people had with melting. The first problem was they were not using a true 5202 kit. They used different kits that would not plug in correct. They used silicone to seal it and hold it in place. They silicone would melt and shift the bulb into the plastic. This caused the plastic to melt. The other problem was some of the first kits were rushed out and were 35watt kits. I have read people had problems with the heat from the 35watt kit. Spencers was the first place that I know of that came out with a 25watt ballast. (trust me I reseached for months before I ordered them lol). I have been running them for around 5 months now. I have no melting and my lenses have not hazed up at all. I will tell you that they are bright. I think they might be brighter then the hid headlights I installed lol. The reason for this is there is nothing to deflect the beam. So the beam comes straight out of the lenses. The fogs are low so it's really not a problem for other drivers. I think I might have been flashed with highbeams 3 times since I installed them. If you have any other questions feel free to ask.

[caverman]

Originally Posted by SNV

Yes I am using the kit from Spencers. Yes they have ballasts. Factory plug goes into one side of ballast, bulb plugs into other side. No I did not remove the housing. Yeah it might have been better to remove to see better lol. For the Camaro you need to use the 25watt kit. There were two problems people had with melting. The first problem was they were not using a true 5202 kit. They used different kits that would not plug in correct. They used silicone to seal it and hold it in place. They silicone would melt and shift the bulb into the plastic. This caused the plastic to melt. The other problem was some of the first kits were rushed out and were 35watt kits. I have read people had problems with the heat from the 35watt kit. Spencers was the first place that I know of that came out with a 25watt ballast. (trust me I reseached for months before I ordered them lol). I have been running them for around 5 months now. I have no melting and my lenses have not hazed up at all. I will tell you that they are bright. I think they might be brighter then the hid headlights I installed lol. The reason for this is there is nothing to deflect the beam. So the beam comes straight out of the lenses. The fogs are low so it's really not a problem for other drivers. I think I might have been flashed with highbeams 3 times since I installed them. If you have any other questions feel free to ask.

What color did you end up going with? Do you have the RS pkg?

Mine is a non-RS and I ended using the 6000k lights. Just curious what color you used. The 5202 bulbs that came from AAC would probably be fine for the factory 4300k but on 6000k and up they are a little to white.

Thanks for the info though. I might change mine out to the hid fogs some time. Right now the HID are bright enough that the fogs are even being turned on.

[SNV]

I have a non rs. I went with 8k for both setups. The 8k looks great with my IBM. Driving around the city I don't use the fogs as much. I drive a lot of back roads where there are a ton of deer.