So after buying my Prius recently I have come from a Honda Accord with bright HIDs' to a Prius with Halogen....and I dont like it. I am so used to the brightness of HIDs. In the UK for 2nd gens you cant buy headlights with projectors for HID bulbs so I have to look for alternatives. What would you guys suggest? - Better Halogens? - LED's? (I dont know if these are suitable) Cheers Simon
I don't know UK laws, but if they're at all similar to here, using a LED or HID replacement in a halogen housing is illegal. There are 3 things you can do to get better light output without replacing the housings: 1. Buy bulbs that have higher and more focused output, at the expense of bulb life. Here's an example from Philips. Standard bulbs last ~1000 hours. These often last in the 150-250 hour range, which sounds short, but if you average 60mph and only have your headlights on 1/3 of the time, that's 27000-48000 miles between bulb replacements. There used to be some bulbs out there that were 70W/60W rated (versus standard 55W/60W, therefore had more light output), and these were okay to use in the stock housings, just used a little more power. Don't get any bulbs with a power rating over 70W (can melt housings), and don't get any colored bulbs (which just reduce overall light output for little bit bluer light). 2. Clean the headlights using sandpaper/toothpaste and clear coat. I won't go into details as there are a ton of tutorials out there. 3. Re-aim your headlights to near the maximum that's legal. There's a knob on the back of the headlights that aims them up and down (it's 8 or 9mm). In Colorado the law is that the bright part of the lights' output must not extend beyond 100 feet with low beams on. Using a dark parking lot with lines 10 feet apart, I was able to aim mine just a bit further out.