I have an 04 SE with stock halogens, I just purchased 2 complete Xenon healight assemblies on EBay. My question is can I just remove the fron fascia unplug and remove the existing headlights an mount the Xenons and everything will work or is there something else I have to do also? Thanks in advance.

 

well if you was to purchase a aftermarket hid kit thats how it would be done, I'm not sure but why not....... plug the oem to the HID ballast I would assume cause the ballast is what feeds the HID to begin with...

I'll bump this maybe someone will back me up........................

 

It is the complete headlight, ballast and all that I bought they are off of an 04 SL Max, not a retrofit. So I am assuming it is just a swap out.

 

thats what I think too......... but wait to see what others say cause I'm not too sure about it..

 

I'm no expert on this, but earlier posts suggest the main things you need are the ballast, the bulbs and the headlight housing (supposedly, the HID one is made to take the higher heat output of the xenons).

I would want to check that the wiring harness (if you didn't get that, too) is up to the electrical load the xenons put on it.

Anyone else want to weigh in on this?

Mike

 

If that is what you have, should be plug and play. With the complete headlight, should have to remove the front bumper, replace the stock headlights, plug and play.

Curious, you get them off Ebay, are you saying you got 2 new headlight assemblies with bulb, ballast, and assembly for each side? If so, PLUG and PLAY.

I still say that cannabalizing a wrecked Xenon for the ballast, bulbs, and end caps will still work also with a non-xenon.

Hope this kinda helps.

 

MY question is this. The HID bulbs have a lower wattage. How do they output more heat if their wattage is rated lower? I am no electrical genius but in the PC industry the more wattage used by a CPU the more heat it generates. Of course if that heat is disappated over a wider area then the temp in in given location is lower, but I thought the HID bulbs had more surface area so they would not be as hot in a given location. That coupled with the wattage used by the bulb I would think it would have lower temps.

 

I was always under the impression that the light HIDs putout is closer to the visible spectrum, so less is wasted as heat (I think halogen output is spread out more; coinsidently, 80% off the energy from a standard incadescent bulb is output as non-visible light = heat). So, since HIDs putout more light near the visible spectrum (and use less energy), I'm not sure why they would heat up more than standard halogens...unless I'm wrong about the output frequencies of HIDs/halogens.. but then how would HIDs be brighter using less energy?

 

More effecient? If the HID is producing light more suited to our eyes then it would mean we would be able to process what we see better.

EDIT: Oops, no shrug smiliey. This will have to do.

 

True, but at the same time if the light being produced isn't in the visible spectrum then you'd never see it... so my question was how can HIDs generate more heat if the light that they produce is mostly in the visible spectrum, all while using less energy? It's like one of those "pick 2" kind of things; you can't have all 3.

 

If you purchase a complete maxima hid kit with the ballast and all that stuff mounted on, then its plug and play.

I installed HID in my car and it was pretty simple to do. I went from stock halogen to hid. Just spliced a few wires and nothing but Xenon!

 

I think the temperature thing came up because the Xenon equipped Maxima's have a different headlamp housing and that housing had some type of insulation in it which people assume was for the heat.

I always thought a 55 watt Halogen would produce more heat then a 35 watt HID so that should not be the case. I was worried if the HIDs did produce more heat then they might be capable of damaging the headlamp assembly. I don't think this is the cause but it was one of my worries because these assemblies cost a fortune.

 

I believe thats what the ballasts are for. To regulate the voltage of the headlights from 55w to 35w...but who knows? well not me for sure.

I just know Xenon is the greatest thing when looking at lights. I wanna mount xenon in my house..lol

 

Heh. That reminds me. I was sitting at a intersection today and this dude in the opposite left turn lane flahses his brights at me. I thought at first it was a car passing by that made it appear the lights flashed but then he did it again. I was like wtf, I don't even have Xenon. I then proceded to flash my high beams at him to make him feel like a jack@ss. Was funny, atleast it was to me.

 

So, our HIDs are only 35 Watts? That's amazing.

 

I believe the ballasts change the voltage from 12V to X,000V (higher voltage is required to ionize the gasses). Also, I believe that they provide a higher voltage at first to get the gasses ionized correctly but back down in order to save energy (as indicated by the way they turn on brightly at first, but then kind of back down and then come back)... this is similiar to the way flourescents work. I think.

Oh, BTW - I was browsing a magainze the other day and I saw an add for a Xenon flash light!

 

I have seen multiple sites mentioning that HID's are 35watts.

 

Sweet....