Headlight performance - HID vs. Halogen

[Kurushio]

With the HID's it's almost like having a stadium lighting on your car. It easily lights up like 6 lanes wide and it is a very clean light. On low beams there is a drastic cut off but im sure the people you drive behind will appreciate (well probably not) that your lights are not bothering them. Plus the halos are awesome if only for looks.

Plus with the RS you get the colored ditch molding on the roof and 20" wheels which i also dont think the SS comes with stock but that wasnt a big selling point to me really lol.

[truckin-on]

Thanks for the comments - and the replacement pricing! I had to replace an HID unit on a Toyota Sienna that had failed - water leaked into the housing. Found it was not covered under any warranty and the unit costs about $1000! At that point, any advantage of the HID's was lost on me :-)

-truckin-on

[MillerTime]

Originally Posted by truckin-on

Thanks for the comments - and the replacement pricing! I had to replace an HID unit on a Toyota Sienna that had failed - water leaked into the housing. Found it was not covered under any warranty and the unit costs about $1000! At that point, any advantage of the HID's was lost on me :-)

-truckin-on

Well thank GOD you got rid of that sienna....LOL

[oachalon]

Plus even if you have a 2SS with the RS package you get the painted roof molding the darker wheels and the darker taillights.

Go with the RS.

[truckin-on]

Hey, the Sienna was the family van. It was well respected and gave good service, but we replaced with a Odyssey (without HID lights). The Odyssey lights are at least as good as the Sienna.

The painted roof moldings don't do much on a convertible :-) I can't tell much difference between the tail lights, and I'm probably going with polished wheels anyway, so the RS package comes down to just lights unfortunately. Would be nice if it was a bit more distinctive, like it used to be in the old days.

-truckin-on

[MillerTime]

Originally Posted by truckin-on

Hey, the Sienna was the family van. It was well respected and gave good service, but we replaced with a Odyssey (without HID lights). The Odyssey lights are at least as good as the Sienna.

The painted roof moldings don't do much on a convertible :-) I can't tell much difference between the tail lights, and I'm probably going with polished wheels anyway, so the RS package comes down to just lights unfortunately. Would be nice if it was a bit more distinctive, like it used to be in the old days.

-truckin-on

I wanted the polished as well, but was going to spend the extra 400 dollars for the polished over the standard RS... The Halo's make the car...BUT if the only REAL difference you'll see is the lights....... you can always add them for 800 bucks... and that's the OEM lights....

[Gene Culley]

And to address the fog lamp issue, there is a harness available to convert them to fog lamps. You can actually get the harness from AAC and you can buy the bulbs to convert the color in the same package. You'll see that once the halos and the fog lamps are on that they are different colors. AAC has the kit to change to cool white color, to match halos, and they give you the harness as well. I believe it is $99.

[caverman]

I didn't buy the RS mostly because I don't like the looks of the Halos as much as the Halogen housing (just a personal preference). I wanted mine to be more like a 1st Gen and to me the Halogen housing helps to make it look more that way.

I was buying polished wheels, couldn't see the difference in the tail lights, and the color roof ditch wasn't that big a deal for me. I've actually had my roof ditch painted now but that's just because it happened to be in the paint shop and didn't cost me any extra.

However, I definately wanted HID lights. One of the first things I did was buy some HID bulbs. There was definately an improvement in light and I thought at the time they were great. Then I was shown by another member on this forum about HID projectors. WOW! what a difference. The HID projectors beat down the Halogen lights big time. If I would've gone this route initially and had TRS build my lights from the get go it would've cost $450 total for everything and to me I love still having the Halogen housing look.

Definatley look through my thread. I have pictures of the Halogen vs HID bulbs vs HID projectors. You can see the difference. If you have any questions just ask.
http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=120440

Now....I will say that there is one downside about getting the Halogen that I didn't know about. It may not be a big deal to you but you should be aware of it. The Halogen Daylight Running Lights (DRL) are actually the headlights running at a lower wattage. That means that basically your headlights are on all the time. In my opinion this takes away from the looks of the car during the day. It was especially bad with the HID bulbs because of the way the bulbs inside the Halogen housing dispersed the light. With the HID projectors the light is just coming from the projector so the DRL is actually not that bad at all. I can live with it now but still would like to ultimately like to not have it come on.

You can turn off the DRL everytime you drive your car but you have to reach over and turn the switch off every time the car is re-started. A big PITA for me. So far there hasn't been a viable solution to get rid of the DRL in my opinion. However there are a couple things in the works and I think we will eventually have a fix.

[savage71ChevelleSS]

I can't believe that I bought my SS without the RS. I have already had 4 nighttime crashes due to the poor light projection of the halogens. I think the light output might only rival my wife's Yankee Candles on the coffee table. If you couldn't guess that is sarcasm. The light output on the halogens is 100% fine. Get what you want, but like other posters said, you are basically paying $1,300 for headlight, and the "cool" factor of the halos. I personally like the halogen look, plus I like $1,300 in my pocket. Do what you want, not what some anonymous people on a message board tell you. It's YOUR car

[truckin-on]

Thanks caverman, great thread on your headlight experience! At this point I'm leaning toward the non-RS look, and having $1300 more left in my pocket.

Just think about how many Yankee Candles you could mount on the hood for that kind of money - why you could see it from the space shuttle! Thanks savage71ChevelleSS - good chuckle!

-truckin-on

[caverman]

Originally Posted by RedDragonSS

removing your front bumper and doing the work yourself or having someone else rip apart your front bumper on your new 30k plus car..

The bumper comes off SUPER EASY. Don't let that scare you.

Just saying......