So I'm browsing the Mazda Protege/3 forum (for my wife's car) and there's a thread talking about people who bought their 3 without HIDs but want to go tothe dealer and buy the HID lights and install themselves.

Not a big deal in itself.

But then they are talking about price: $590 for the HID lights for the 3.

Why the hell is Nissan charging $1200 or whatever it is and Mazda is charging <600 for theirs?

 

because Nissan is


Hope that answers your question

 

I bet they are just changing the bulbs out with HID unit. 3, if I'm not mistaken, already comes with projector lights with separate hi/lo beam combination whether you order with HID or not. For Maxima, you have to change out entire housing. Still $1000+ is way too expensive. At most whole thing should be around $800 IMO.

 

when i first bought my max i was looking into gettin new stock headlamps so i can retrofit some projectors in there... since i work for a car dealer group i went to our nissan store and our cost price on the headlamps as a set was 500 something... no bulbs no ballasts just straight headlamp housings... with bulbs and ballasts it was in the 800 range... this was approx 2 yrs ago... i noticed that once the hid's on these cars were gettin jacked, the cost price to the dealer skyrocketed... so it doesnt cost nissan jack **** they can sell them just as cheap as mazda, but they jacked prices once they saw this **** was gettin stolen... makes you wonder if nissan designed the lights like this in the first place???

 

and this goes back to my MAF conspiracy theory... easily blown part that cost grips of money