hids illegal??//
 

so i went to a place today to try and get hids for my car and the guy tells me there illegal so they dont carry them any more anyone hear of this before

although most newer cars have them, they are Illegal to retrofit.

I'm pretty sure the main reason why they are illegal

one is they eliminate the High beam on our cars unless you get a bixenon kit

two nobody ever aims them down and they blind everyone

no day time running lights either

Don't most of the "newer" kits have the standard halogen running light built in? Mine does, and I thought that was the "norm"...

Taken straight from HID planet
"We have indeed, bottled fire

HID kits are illegal in the USA because of DOT says so. Period.

Good or bad, we start from there.


Standard 108 says that you can not put a HID bulb in an headlight which was meant for a halogen housing. One reflector is made for a thin strip of tungsten, and the other an arc tube which is round. The modern free form reflector/projector is designed to a tight enough standard that even if the arc tube is in the exact same spot as filament bulb, there will be stray light, hot spots etc... That is their reasoning, and we do not debate that because they make the laws.

What this means for you is that HID Kits are a black market. DOT will shut down any US importer of HID kits large enough to be worth the effort. They have ruled repeatedly that "off road" or "show only" kits are still illegal, you MUST have a valid "on road" use in order to legally import a product for US vehicles.

What ends up happening is you have literally thousands of different manufacturers producing kits for a limited time, changing names, brands products etc... may be the same company, may not be, but that limits your recourse if the kit goes bad etc... typically 6 months is the limit you will see a new brand on the market.

The challenge that these small manufacturers have are 2 fold, and will explain why a lot of people do not reccomend them. "

what could you get charged with?

my 97 has DRL and the highbeams still work (they run off the DRL).

Strength of front lamps
(9) No motor vehicle shall carry on the front thereof more than four lighted lamps that project a beam having an intensity of over 300 candela. R.S.O. 1990, c. H.8, s. 62 (9).

I don't know what candela HIDs are putting out, but maybe that's something you can be charged with?

humm.. sounds like something that could be argued in court. Would be interesting to find out what 300 Candela looks like

A cop would not be able to give you a ticket because he has no light meter

he cannot measure your light output

but they do anyways same thing for an axhaust they don't have a decibal meter but they still give you a ticket

or they can argue that it's not SAE or DOT approve according to your manufacture. CASE CLOSED.

how could they argue that? HID's come on stock cars, so HID's themselves must be DOT approved.

http://www.omnixautosports.com/
sells HID and claim they are DOT approved.

unless im missing something...

Maybe he WILL have a light meter.

I wouldn't be surprised if these tools are made available to them in the near future. It sure would stop a lot of tickets from being dismissed!

I'd love to see someone bring in the manual for their install kit and open it to the page that says "For off-road use only".

Here is something to think about:

Several years ago when the aftermarket tail light/lens first became popular, there were many versions and most of them did not comply with FMVSS 108 even though the packaging said legal in 50 states or DOT approved. The products also have DOT numbers imprinted on them. These letters/numbers indicate certain parts of the product are compliant such as rear lens, rear color, rear reflector, side reflector, side lens, side color etc. There were DOT numbers on many of these aftermarket lenses but usually all of the numbers were not present. This indicates that parts of the lens were not compliant.

Taken from http://forums.officer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41131

Yes.....
Factory cars that come with HID, has housing that are designed for a non filament bulb.

If you but HID bulbs in a halugen housing the light bounces everywhere in the reflector that was meant for a filament bulb.
Which in turns gives you glare and blinding on coming drivers and drivers in front of you.

If you aim them lower to reduce glare, you'll be loosing light to light up the signs cause you'll be lighting up the floor.

So in conculsion HID plug and play kits are all for looks with no function.

A cop hassled me once about my hids. I showed him a card that came with my TYC projectors, it stated that it was under compliance of DOT and he didnt have much to say afterward. None the less he still could have nailed me.

Just dont be stupid with them!! Aim your damn lights properly , I see car after car with them pointed straight up blinding everyone I had them on my car for 4 years and NEVER had a issue with the law.

no cop is gonna hassle you unless you attract attention to yourself, like ridiculous colour HID or have them pointed at the sky.

my HIDs are 5000K which comes out white but no hint of blue but they do colourshift when you look at them from a distance and the cutoff is purple/blue but that happens to any cutoff. they're pointed straight as well so i'm not blinding anybody.

The thing with plug and play kits are you CAN'T aim them properly.
You aim them lower then stock you won't be able to see signs.
You leave them at stock height your going to blind people.

Doesn't that defeat the purpose of HID?

In OEM HID projector system they produce a cut off like this
http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/246/1001205kr2.jpg

Notice there is a lower step to the cut off?
That is to prevent light to be in on coming drivers and the higher step are to light up the signs.
Also note that there is no light above cut off to prevent glare and blinding other drivers.
Also OEM HID projectors light up wider and further.

Halogen projectors with hid plug and play is more narrow and distance is short.

Now compare your plug and play hid lights to this!

^^^ then compare TSX to this, lol:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y28...5_2089copy.jpg