No aftermarket company fine tunes the kit for any specific vehicle because no afternarket company MAKES the HID element. ALL the "kits" are just an HID element plus ballast/wiring/connectors/ect to stuff an HID element in place of the existing bulb. A few companies do "customize" the wiring & connectors to fit various applications but most do not even do that.

The inherent problem is with the HID element itself. The existing headlight assembly shapes the beam using the reflector to direct the light output. The exact positioning of the filament is critical to the beam pattern but none of the HID elements on the market put the light source at exactly the same point (location and shape) as the halogen bulb did.

Because the light source is not in exactly the same place, the beam pattern goes to hell.

Try this, take your existing headlight with the standard bulb properly installed and look at the beam pattern. Then turn it off, let it cool a little, unscrew the retaining ring and just slightly shift how the buld seats in the headlight assembly. Now turn the light on and look at the pattern. It WILL have shifted and it WILL be uneven. The light source in an HID element is not in the right place and is not the right shape to match the light source in your headlight buld so the reflector puts the beam out wrong.

The only right answer is to replace the entire headlight assembly with a complete assembly that was designed entirely for HID. Unfortunately there are very few such replacement assemblies available made to go into non-HID vehicles. It is possible to adapt some HID Headlight Assemblies to fit in some vehicles but it is rarely cheap and never easy.

 

EDIT: Actually n4aof in the post above me is pretty much right on, except for the assertion that nobody makes the bulbs with the precise positioning required to do it right. Few do, but not nobody.


Oh come on that's one of the most ridiculous things I've heard on this board, and there are ridiculous things flying around all over the place. Quality is not subjective.

That said there are a number of people here giving well-intentioned advice, maybe one or two of them from actual experience even (though no such credentials were mentioned), rather than hearsay.

It's true that cheap housings or cheap HIDs in factory housings (or even some expensive HIDs) are crap and should be avoided. Ballasts don't last, bulbs don't last, actual bulb design is not precise, just sort of slapped together, etc.

However, it's NOT a correct blanket statement to say that HIDs in factory housings cannot be done correctly, that they'll blind oncoming drivers, that they're a waste of money, etc.

It is true that reflector housings (i.e. hallogen capsule housings, aka OEM) are designed for specific halogen bulbs. However, have you noticed that any halogen bulbs of a particular type (such as H13 on the '05-'07 models) can be used in those housings? You can go to AutoZone, pick out an H13 off the rack, throw it in your light, and be on your way. That's because they're made to very specific measurements, light comes from very specific distances from the bulb base, and most of the time if they're off a little they're not making so much light that it matters all that much.

There's no reason that you can't get a HID bulb to work the same exact way. The problem is that HIDs put out so much more light that they have to be even more precise than halogens to get the proper results. Yes, light scatter may end up being more noticeable than with old, dimming halogens, especially if it's an odd-ball color, but if the pellets are placed properly, then you should not end up blinding oncoming drivers, and you should basically end up with what feels like the brightest halogen you could imagine. If you want to be extra sure that you're not causing a problem for other drivers, you can aim the headlights down just slightly, but that's about it. If you do it right, people won't even really notice.

The problem is that most of the junk you find on eBay or at the discount online places is, well, junk. Do not install these in your truck. Do not buy ebay housings if you can help it. Many of these housing are...junk. They'll use plastic lenses, the projector and reflector are not independently adjustable, etc.

You can try to retrofit something like Acura projectors into your housing, but if your cut-off is too extreme, you end up not necessarily being able to see overhead signs, can't see up the hill you're about to climb, and so on. A certain amount of light scatter is healthy and desired--it's designed from the factory to do exactly that so you can get some light around the edges, so to speak. The problem is that with cheaply made, slapped-together HID bulbs are just sort of vaguely shaped to look like whatever halogen type they're replacing, their tolerances aren't tight, and they're likely to be an imprecise design in the first place, they have improper shielding (or none at all), and so on, which is what gives HID kits such a bad name.

Yes, you can get properly done HID kits with quality bulbs and quality ballasts. No, they will NOT be as cheap as the Chinese places like DDM and VVME. But it won't actually be too bad.

If you actually care and aren't just into bad-mouthing stuff, do yourselves a favor and read through this thread: https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/8...eadlights.html

In the mean time, shoot me a PM and I'll guide you to the source where I ended up buying my HIDs from (paid full price, in no way am I affiliated or anything).